


Demons Run (SFW)

by U_Can_Ebb_and_I_Can_Flow



Category: Black Clover - Tabata Yuki (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angels, Demons, F/F, F/M, Forbidden Magic, Gen, Idiots in Love, Love at First Sight, M/M, Magic, Magic Realism, Multi, Pre-Canon, Runes, Spies & Secret Agents, Spy Network, Swallowtail, War, eheheheheh this is gonna be fuuuuuuuuuun, magic items
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-12 02:34:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 44,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28752987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/U_Can_Ebb_and_I_Can_Flow/pseuds/U_Can_Ebb_and_I_Can_Flow
Summary: This is the non-explicit version of Demons Run but there is still some innuendo so beware ;)"In every Angel, a Demon hides. In every Demon, an Angel strides."Aika hoped for an uneventful end to the war with the Diamond Kingdom, but she did not expect to find forgotten dreams.A story about self-discovery, the rise and fall of Empires, and love that will outlast centuries.
Relationships: Julius Novachrono/Original Character(s), Julius Novachrono/Original Female Character(s), Julius Novachrono/Reader, Mereoleona Vermillion/Original Female Character(s), Zara Ideale/Julius Novachrono(Past)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	1. The First Meeting

Julius carefully laid on his bed as he touched his side. He had a few weeks off because he caught a curse that resisted any magic and was slowly deteriorating his liver. He needed to wait until the mana resistance was gone till he could rewind the area till it was like before but even then there was no guarantee because he could rewind to the time the mana resistance was there.

Julius groaned at the thought. So, he had to accelerate his healing which would probably leave a nasty scar only  _ after  _ the mana resistance had worn off.  _ And  _ he would also have to lay off on drinks. God, this was a mess.

So with nothing interesting to do, exercise, or go anywhere at this time of night, Julius scoured through his notes on the Swallowtail in his bedroom in the Gray Deer headquarters. According to the First Wizard King’s notes, it was made out of two kinds of metal. One was platinum and another was tungsten. The tungsten was actually a higher grade one with carbon and nickel, making it a very expensive ball of metal.

_ Being a prince at the time lends a limitless budget to make such things, I suppose.  _ Julius thought wryly.

He wanted to make one himself because someone had overflowed the Swallowtail he had found in Hage and he couldn’t deposit anymore of his own magic.

Being a squad captain paid well, but he often gave most of his money away for bonuses for his subordinates or charities. Living in the headquarters meant free food and shelter and he needed very little much for any extra expenses. Even if he did save any money, he didn’t have enough time to make anything. He was happy just observing others' magic.

The only magic that seemed compatible with the Swallowtail, as far as he knew, was Time...Meaning that there was another Time mage out there that he doesn’t know. He didn’t have enough time to seek them but he hoped that they were doing something good for the world. He knew that they were powerful to some extent, considering that they nearly over-filled the large conductor and they weren’t wreaking havoc, and so the most likely conclusion is that they’re living out a quiet life as he hasn't heard of any Time Mage becoming a Magic Knight or anything. But that was under a generalizing assumption that anybody with powerful magic wanted to be a Magic Knight. 

For all he knew, they were a scholar studying magic at the Royal Library since that was the only place you could find the first Wizard King’s notes on how to use the Swallowtail.

Julius looked at the moon outside his window in melancholy. If he wasn’t so bent on becoming the Wizard King,  _ he  _ would be studying magic.  _ Wait a minute _ , couldn’t he just go to the library and request the logbook to see who checked out the notes under the pretense of an investigation?

Suddenly, there was an unexpected change in the air. It felt charged, a little malicious. Someone was expelling a lot of mana nearby. This mana was either a threat or some cool display of magic. Very enthused and distracted by the opportunity to witness some magic, Julius threw some shoes and a cloak on, grabbed his grimoire and jumped out the window with a wince. He flew in a circle above the Grey Deer HQ in an attempt to get a visual of the mana and  _ bingo _ !

There was a black-gold mana emanating from the forest in the East. He quickly made his way to it and stopped a few meters from it. Julius spotted a woman between the trees with her arms out towards a fallen tree, two pieces of paper hovered a little to her right as her long, black hair swayed with her. There was a small campfire and a backpack which rested against a chair which looked like it was from Raquey. 

_ A foldable lounge chair in the middle of the woods? _ Julius wondered.

She seemed to be doing something to the tree but Julius couldn’t figure out what it was. Nothing was really happening so Julius moved closer and closer and didn’t really notice the bear trap right in his path as he observed the mysterious woman. His foot landed on the trap and when he placed just enough weight, it clamped shut on his leg. 

Julius let out a short, guttural scream at the immense pain that shot through his body. He clutched his wounded leg as he clamped his teeth on his bottom lip in pain. He had never imagined he would feel so much pain  _ in his life _ . It felt like his soul had left his body.

He couldn’t even concentrate enough to rewind the area to undo the clamp. He huffed as he tried to manually undo the clamp but he was suddenly caught off guard by a figure that appeared by his side. It was the mysterious woman.

* * *

Aika whipped her head towards the direction where she heard a very human scream. She watched as a man had caught his leg in the trap she laid down for some protein.  _ Ouch.  _ She was too busy trying to revive the fallen tree that she hadn’t noticed his mana nearby. The fact that she couldn’t detect him was dangerous but he was caught in the trap and looked fairly harmless right now with a bloody leg so she turned her paranoia down a bit.

Aika was instantly at his side and he looked up at her with wide eyes. Not knowing what to say exactly in a situation such as that, she picked him up and moved so fast she virtually teleported to the chair and laid him on it.

“Sorry for the trap,” Aika said awkwardly as she crouched next to his leg. He looked warily at her and grimaced in pain. Aika smiled reassuringly as she thought of a joke as she usually does in order to distract her patients. In the light, Aika noticed he was a little cute so an idea struck.

“I laid it out so I could catch something to eat.” She said as she positioned her fingers carefully between the spikes. “But I didn’t imagine I would trap something so delicious.” She winked.

Though he was still sweating from the pain, his lips twitched up into a strained smile and at that, Aika wrenched the clamp open and threw it to the side. His pant leg grew bloodier but she wrapped her hands around the wound as he yelped and healed it. She watched in slight satisfaction as the blood receded and the blood on the clamps themselves flew back to his wound and it sealed shut.

Aika looked back up at him to make sure he was doing okay but he looked at her with literal stars in his eyes.

“You completely reversed the wound! How did you do that? What kind of magic is it?”

Aika giggled at the childish wonder on his face and patted his leg.

“I’ll answer all your questions when I’m done,” she assured him with a smile. He looked at Aika in confusion but stayed quiet. She fished out a clean glass and a water stone. She pushed some mana through the stone and clear water flowed out and into the glass. She put it back and fished out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead where he was sweating. She passed him the glass of water and made herself comfortable on the floor. His eyes were filled with wonder as he stared at the glass of water.

“Thank you for healing me and,” he looked at the water “and this!” Aika laughed at his delighted expression.

“What is that stone? I’ve never seen anything like that!”

“It’s just a water stone and you’re welcome, stranger. I think we should start with introductions, shall we? My name is Aika Tolliver, what’s yours?” He gave her a dazzling smile and took her hand to shake it.

“My name is Julius Novachrono. Pleased to make your acquaintance! Could you please tell me more about water stones? What are they? I’ve never heard of them!”

_ Wait a minute. _

It was Aika’s turn to be delighted. This was  _ The _ Julius Novachrono, the man who was going to be the next Wizard King! The man who was such a big mystery that no one knew his real attribute, only rumors. People believed he had multiple but Aika was here to find out by herself. It’s been two years since she had been in Clover Kingdom longer than a week. 

Aika was coming back from her mission in the Diamond Kingdom she was doing for her friend as a favor and she had only seen Captain Novachrono once when he became Captain and she skimmed his files.

Aika had actually camped near the Gray Deer Headquarters so she could petition to meet the captain the next day. She had been working with her Uncle—the current Wizard King—for the past five, almost six years while staying in the Diamond Kingdom for the last two, gathering counterintelligence for the war while helping her childhood friend to lead the resistance movement. 

She kept her involvement in this country’s affairs on the down-low, or her cover would be blown. After her Uncle retires after the war with the Diamond Kingdom, she will have to delegate her services to the new Wizard King, Julius Novachrono. Her Uncle told her to meet with him and see how he was before she dove into his files for a closer look instead of skimming like she did the last time she went over all the Captain’s files.

“Oh, the pleasure is all mine, Captain Novachrono! I didn’t know it was you!” Suddenly Aika felt bashful. “I was going to petition to meet you tomorrow—” She twitched when she felt the time of the night. “wait why were you here in the first place?” she blurted. It was quite late. Past eleven actually. Yes, she wanted to meet him, but at a more appropriate time...

Julius bounced in his seat, incredibly excited now. Somehow the cute expression strangely suited his angular face.

“I felt your mana so I came to investigate. What kind of magic do you use? What were you doing to that tree?” Aika didn’t think she expelled enough mana to wake someone up and she honestly didn’t want to reveal her magic in the first conversation.

“Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to wake you up! I was just trying to revive this tree here.” Aika said, pointing at the tree next to us. He wiped his forehead as he took off his cloak.

“Oh, so is it Plant Magic? Or maybe Tree Magic?”  _ Take a hint! _ She sighed.

“I mean kind of.” That wasn’t a lie. She can technically use multiple attributes because of the magic stones but very minor stuff of course. Light a fire, grow a plant faster, water to take a bath etc.

“What kind of magic do  _ you  _ use? A friend of mine said I would find your magic very interesting,” she said as she eyed him up and down. Well, it wasn’t really a friend, it's her Uncle but same difference. If he was an elemental mage then her guess would be wind, but he  _ had  _ to be something really amazing if he was the strongest Magic Knight Captain. 

“Oh,” he laughed good-naturedly. “I suppose it is interesting.” He smiled amiably at her. “It’s Time Magic.”

“Huh?” Aika’s eyes flicked to Julius’s forehead and her mind went blank. He had the six-pointed star, albeit a faint one and some things clicked into place. 

_ Of course. That’s why people would think he had multiple attributes. _

She let out a high-pitched exhale as she pressed her fingers to her temples. He was the man she had been looking for for a while now. Actually not a while, for  _ a whole decade _ . Julius looked over at her in concern.

“Is that bad?” 

A hysterical giggle escaped Aika. She looked up at him and shifted the strand of hair covering the left side of her forehead. She had the same little star tattoo, deep black rather than blue, on her forehead in the same spot.

Julius gasped almost imperceptibly.

“You’re…” 

Aika smiled at him. “I’m also a Time Mage.” Everyone had someone that they related to when it came to their magic, but her? She had bits and pieces of her dead family’s, and the oh so amazing Time Magic. Time Magic which could barely use outside the Four Suits Continent without people trying to hunt her down. She had traveled all over the world with many objectives, one of them being to find another Time Mage, and there just happens to be one in her  _ home country? _

“Wow! I can’t believe it!” Julius exclaimed. He turned the lounge chair sideways and patted the spot next to him. “Are you from the Clover Kingdom, Aika? Why have I never seen you before?” 

_ Good question, Julius. I could ask you the same. _

Aika quickly sat next to him as they looked at each other in awe.

“I travel a lot so I’m not in the Clover Kingdom all the time.” Aika willed her beating heart to calm down. She couldn’t really tell him who she really was until her Uncle let her. So until then, she needed to obfuscate.

“But you used the Swallowtail last year though.” Julius’s eyes flickered up to the star on Aika’s forehead. She blushed a little in embarrassment. This was not how she expected this conversation to go at all. She was  _ freaking out. _ She couldn’t believe this.

“I was only there for a short while. I found it really fascinating that it could only store Time Magic.” She met his eyes with a pleased blush on her cheeks. “And it made me hope that there might be another Time Mage out there, you know? Can you, erm, do you also store time, is that why you used the Swallowtail?” Julius smiled wanly at her.

“Well, the true nature of my magic is stealing time from people, so yes I store time and I use it up whenever needed, which is not often. I don’t need the Swallowtail particularly. I just found it interesting. Can  _ you _ store time?” One part of Aika was elated that he can store time too meaning he could live forever too if he wanted to, but she frowned at the slight undertone of self-hatred.

“Yeah and I don’t call it stealing, Julius. I often take time from plants, especially when I need to use it for healing. Taking time from people is not as effective since we all only live a couple decades. Trees live for thousands of years. In fact, as you are taking someone’s time, their potential to live anymore exponentially decreases because, well, they are no more in a few seconds. So as you take time, they de-age and you only take the time they’ve lived so far and the few extra seconds—if you draw it out that long—that they live as they de-age.” Aika flushed when she noticed the wide-eyed look he was giving her. That may have been a little pretentious… 

“Er, sorry for rambling, um, it is under the assumption that our magic works the same way of course,” she twiddled with her fingers. Aika nearly jumped when he let out a laugh.

“I just wasn’t expecting to talk about killing people in the first conversation,” He gave her an easy smile as if to placate her. 

“I am very sorry,” she laughed. “That  _ is  _ an awful topic for the first conversation,” Julius shifted in his seat as his demeanor turned serious, though he maintained a smile on his face.

“You sure know the specifics about rewinding people,” He looked at her with slightly narrowed eyes, his hackles—his mana—slightly rising. “Do you often go around killing people?” He asked as if they were talking about the weather. Aika tensed at the sheer pressure he was exerting on her. She glared at him and shrugged his mana off. 

“I’ve traveled around the world and made many friends and also  _ many _ enemies. I understand that it’s your duty as a Magic Knight Captain to look out for people but  _ please  _ don’t throw your mana at me like that,” she adjusted her skirt and turned towards the fire. The world isn’t nice to people with Arcane Magic like her’s and Julius.

“‘Do no harm but take no shit.’ That’s my philosophy. The world is full of dangerous people who would love to have a Time Mage on their side to harm innocents or just eliminate me just because I’m too dangerous to exist. Safe to say, out in the world, for me, it is to kill, or get chased relentlessly around the world, get loved ones turned into hostages,  _ and  _ threaten to oppress nations to make sure my bleeding heart bleeds dry,” Aika turned and gave him a hard look. 

“I’ll stay humble and hands-off until  _ my  _ existence is used as an excuse to hurt  _ others. _ Oh, and let me tell you, they  _ really  _ helped finding the intricacies of my magic,” she hissed. Aika cleared her throat and composed herself as Julius stared at her, speechless. “The only reason, I suspect the nobles haven’t attempted to kill you, is because you work for a government institution where your actions can be monitored and when you become the Wizard King, the royalty themselves can keep an eye on you.”

Julius looked away guiltily but grew thoughtful as he processed what she said. It was true, some people  _ have  _ tried to take advantage of him in the past. He was only more protected because he was a noble.

Aika felt a spike of regret shoot through her. Maybe that was harshly put. She didn’t need to say all that. She opened her mouth to apologize but he turned to her and said,

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know your situation and—” She laid a hand on his to cut him off. She didn’t know why she was being so familiar with him but touching him didn’t burn with awkwardness as it often does with a stranger.

“No, I,” Aika sighed to assuage her inner turmoil. “There was no need for me to get so hostile. You had a valid reason to ask that question. I’m still jumpy from...a lot,” she looked away. He laid a hand on hers and squeezed apologetically.

“No, no I made a baseless accusation. I understand what you mean now.”

Aika’s vibrant purple eyes looked up from his hand on hers and connected with his much darker ones. In a moment of shared vulnerability, both their hearts raced as they struggled to breathe. Julius’ eyes flickered down to her lips as she licked them. They both looked away in embarrassment when they realized how close they actually were.

Julius fought down a blush as he cleared his throat. Aika bit her lip with a smile.

“So,” Aika started as she struggled to keep the giddiness out of her voice. “What’re your goals you want to accomplish when you become Wizard King?” He perked up at that. “It’s one of the reasons why I wanted to visit your Headquarters, you know? My uncle had taught me that talking to your statesmen is important,” This was all completely true. By sitting down and talking to him, she was assessing his personality and fitness to rule and whether she wanted to work with him or not like she does with the current Wizard King. “Would you be willing to talk to citizens and hear them out?”

“Of course, I am willing to hear what people think needs to be fixed, though I have to say, I am not going to be the king, I’m just...going to be in charge,” He winked at her. Aika chuckled with him. Julius leaned forward towards the fire with a serious expression on his face.

“I want to first reform the Magic Knights,” he began. 

“What will you reform?” She asked as she tilted her head.

“First, I want to pave a way for more commoners and peasants to be accepted into the Magic Knights. In order to do that, I must create a system based on merit, where everyone can be equal,” Julius’s eyes shone brightly as he looked towards the burning cinders at the edge of the fire. “where one’s social status doesn’t get in the way of giving people the opportunity to serve and protect this kingdom and that’s how it all starts. Then, I’m going to make sure that no one is ever discriminated against, not only in the Magic Knights but in this entire kingdom.”

Aika stared at him, her mouth slightly agape. Julius noticed and turned bashful. He didn’t know why he was telling her so much. Maybe because she was the first person to really ask?

“Ah, I’ve said too much, haven’t I?”

Aika took his hand that was still laying on top of her’s and squeezed reassuringly.

“No, that was...I, you were just really passionate about it and,” Aika thought about the kids back in her hometown in the Forsaken Realm who dreamed of becoming Magic Knights and her own forgotten dream of being one. She didn’t expect to be so melancholic and sentimental tonight. Perhaps she had let her guard down  _ too  _ much in her excitement. For the first time in her life, she didn’t feel alone. Her nose grew stuffy so she sniffed. “I’m just  _ glad. _ I’m-I’m just really happy that the Clover Kingdom is going to be in good hands.” 

Aika didn’t realize she was crying until she felt a hand touch her face. She was stunned by the gesture. Julius brushed a stray tear with his thumb with a featherlight touch as he studied her with soft, violet eyes, framed by thick lashes and it left her a bit breathless.

A man with strong conviction and the willingness to be vulnerable was  _ very  _ attractive. Aika smiled inwardly. She leaned into his hand and looked at him from beneath her lashes.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cry.”

He inhaled sharply and let his hand fall. Aika watched his Adam’s apple in interest as he swallowed nervously.

“That’s alright. Erm, so what do you do besides travel?” Aika resisted the urge to keep staring at him and answered the question as she looked away. Did she really want to do this?

“Oh, I’m a traveling mage: teacher, scholar, student, doctor. I spend most of my time studying.” All of it was technically true. She was a mage who travelled a lot and studied a lot of magic in her free time but not so much that she ignored her real work.

“Oooh, What do you study?”

“I mainly study magic but also everything else too, to be honest.”

“Wow, really?! What magic?”

And so they talked hours into the night about everything and nothing related to magic. Turns out that the future Wizard King was a magic nerd just like Aika, though Aika studied magic more for the sake of discovering her own abilities while Julius was just fascinated by it.

Julius was actually really pleased to have a real, intellectual conversation about magic rather than be that one person who was one-sidedly enthusiastic. They talked about arcane magics, learning techniques, development, magic items and so much more.

It wasn’t long before they both took out their own grimoires to examine each other’s. Aika warned Julius that he probably can’t read her’s because it was written in an unknown language that only she understood. He assured her that he didn’t mind and they were both delighted to find that both their grimoires didn’t have covers. As Time Mages, it either meant that their magical potential was limitless, mana was limitless or their time was limitless. Or it could just be a representation of the very idea of time, that it has no beginning or an end.

Julius stared at Aika’s grimoires which was a spiral of black pages with text written in gold. The color and energy that the grimoire emanated was quite different from his own but the shape and the movement was the same.

He plucked a page from the spiral and Aika was right, he couldn’t understand it. He looked over at Aika who was carefully examining his pages with a wide smile and dazzled eyes. For some strange reason, his mouth went dry.

“Our spells are so similar, yet different,” she whispered. “But you don’t have as many Mana Zone or general spells as I do. That’s okay, though.”

“General spells?”

“Yeah, like spells purely made from mana, not bound by any attributes,” she held two pages and looked between them.

“You have Chronostasis, but not Stasis, but you still have attack spells that are pure mana though. Damn, you must have a lot of mana then.” Julius was only half listening because he was overcome with the urge to befriend her, keep her close. All he could think about was how she wasn’t the least bit intimidated by the strongest Captain in the force, how she touched him so casually and talked as if they’d been friends for years. It’s been  _ years _ since anyone other than a few close friends had had such a lively conversation with him. He couldn’t help but be drawn in.

“Hey, Julius?” Aika laid a hand on his.  _ Exactly like that. _ He mentally shook his head and turned his attention to her.

“Are you alright? Maybe you should go sleep...it’s around 2.” 

He looked down at her hand.

“Yes…” Julius looked up and the smile she gave him was...he needed to think.

“I have to prepare for the journey tomorrow, Julius.” He stood up and Aika with him.

“You’re leaving?”

“Well, yes. Places to be, people to see. I’m leaving late afternoon. What?” Aika held his cloak and stepped closer to him. “You going to miss me?”

She giggled when Julius looked up as he fought a blush.

“I-“ This might be a big mistake.

“It’s okay, I’m just kidding,” Julius gave her a pleading look and shook his head.

“No, I-How do I find you again?”

“Well, we have all the time in the world, don’t we, Time Mage? We’ll find each other again  _ very _ soon,” she pulled his cloak closer together. “And this kingdom needs its Wizard King, doesn’t it?” She murmured as if to remind herself who she’s clinging on to. 

“Yes. Yes, it does.” Could he really afford to be distracted? Especially when there’s a war going on? And he’s going to be Wizard King so his reputation was also at stake.

Julius stepped back and Aika let her hands fall hesitantly. They both took in each other’s appearances and their eyes met once again. The unspoken longing was palpable. Every nerve in Julius’s body was screaming to move, move either towards her or  _ run _ , get away from here. Aika broke the tense silence between them.

“It was nice meeting...the only other Time Mage around.” She clasped her hands together. “See you, around. I’ll be watching you as you change the world. Knock ‘em dead, Julius.”

He grinned at her and bowed his head.

“I won’t disappoint,” he turned around and raised a hand. “Goodbye.” He put one reluctant step in the direction of his base. There was one moment where they both wanted to say more, do more. Aika looked away and Julius didn’t look back.

* * *

Aika stared between her backpack which opened up to a space that was her comfortable loft  _ or  _ she could sleep on the lounge chair with a view to the starry night sky. A gust of cold breeze and the smell of rain quickly helped her make a decision. She stood up with a sigh and hung the bag high up on a tree branch. She flew up and stepped into the warping void inside her backpack.

Aika landed on her feet at the bottom of the ladders that led up to the outside world. But this space was hers and hers only. The loft was originally just a giant, empty box with beige walls, given as a gift from a Spatial Mage for saving his family’s lives and she commissioned builders to make three separate floors out of it. The entrance opened from a corner in the ceiling so Aika turned the top floor into a living room, bedroom and kitchen, the middle floor into her workspace with labs, a small library, and an office and the bottom floor was used as a basement.

She put her hands on her hips with a tired sigh and looked around at her living room. She took note of the slew of papers in an organized chaos next to her favorite armchair. She needed to sort through that quickly, or she was never going to do it. She ducked her head into the kitchen and smiled in relief that the Stasis spell on her sandwich had held by one of the many small prototype Swallowtails strategically scattered around her loft.

She flopped onto her armchair with a sigh and one by one, papers next to her floated in front of her and she arranged them categorically into piles. She did so mindlessly as the only thing on her mind was Julius.

_ A Time mage…Maybe I’ll visit to talk more magic with him. He certainly seemed excited. _

Aika shook her head. He was going to be too busy for her to pursue anything with him. She had to remain professional, especially since she has to work for him in the future. He was just a passing fancy and nothing more. It was better to remain as coworkers and maybe friends.  _ Totally  _ not going to be on her mind for the rest of her sleepless night. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's definitely going to be on her mind lol


	2. The War Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You'll learn more abt Aika and Julius gets some time in the spotlight and shows off his military genius :)))

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like in BC canon, everyone's like omggg hes such an amazing wizard king who brings us so many victories!!! but we never actually see any of his ideas and plans? So i've decided to showcase that in this fic

A week later, Aika hummed a playful tune as she planted a few wisteria trees around the Magic Knights Headquarters. Lord Raymond, the current Wizard King, was planning a stressful military campaign against another imminent invasion from the Diamond Kingdom so Aika planted a few trees for him to enjoy whenever he relaxed in the gardens to get away from work.

Aika had helped Lord Raymond with foreign matters over the years and had grown to become good friends with the older man. It was only by accident that they found that his dead younger brother was Aika’s father. 

Years ago, she was selling paintings her father had painted before he died and in curiosity, Raymond came to the pseudo-art show. When he noticed the artist’s name and signature, he knew it was his brother. Needless to say, Aika was ecstatic. She had lost her entire family at sixteen and finding family again nearly two decades later was like a dream come true.

Though she was his niece, her experience and information from other kingdoms was something Lord Raymond highly valued and since Aika needed a cover for her work. So she worked as an _unofficial_ consultant to him. She would rather not be paid by her own family.

She stood up as she dusted the dirt from her knees. Aika curled her toes to grip and grass and tightly clasped the plant stone in her right palm. She took a deep breath in, spread her arms out towards the little grove and pushed her magic into the seeds and willed them to grow.

She couldn’t grow plants quickly with Time Magic alone because she would have to accelerate the day-night cycle and provide the plants with constant water and nutrition, theoretically speaking. But Plant Magic, on the other hand, doesn’t have such limitations and plants could grow just with magic alone with extra magical properties. Absolutely fascinating stuff.

Aika had noted that Time and Plant magic shared similar properties because during her studies, she had found that magic wasn’t a catalyst in some Plant Mages cases but actually accelerated time while providing all that the plant needed to grow. In other Plant mages’ cases, most notably the ones who grew plants slower, the magic only acts as an accelerant with no time magic in play.

Aika dodged as a clump of hard dirt nearly hit her in the face when the trees sprouted and rose rapidly. She watched with a small smile as the vine-like branches grew and sprouted wisteria flowers that shone in the afternoon sun. She had no doubt that they would glow in the night as well.

“Miss Aika!” her guard’s voice yelled out.

“I’m fine!” she yelled back as she adjusted her sun hat.

“No, Miss Aika,” he ran to her side. “The Wizard King wants you in the Captain’s Conference room immediately.”

“Oh? Did he say what for, Evan?” Aika adjusted her plaid skirt.

“He said it’s time you were brought in,” Evan gave her a knowing look. Aika sighed. Today was going to be a _long_ day. At least this meant that she didn’t have to wear that god-awful amulet that made people forget her.

“Alright, thank you. Take the rest of the day off. I’m sorry I can’t join you, Ellie and Jayce tonight.”

“Yes, ma’am and it’s alright. The trees look really beautiful by the way.”

“Thank you, Evan.”

She turned and looked up at the Headquarters Tower with a squint.

 _It’s time, huh? Is it really that serious, Uncle Ray?_ Aika thought as she slipped into her heels.

She slid her backpack on and waved ‘bye’ to her guard as she flew to the arched, slightly open, clover windows of the conference room. She hid her mana and flew a little to the side of the windows and peeked in. 

Her Uncle had his back to her as he faced seven captains. By the way he was gesticulating at Lord Silva, the Silver Eagles Captain, Aika could tell he was getting impatient for some reason. The walls and tables were strewn with papers blotted with inks of various colors. The rest of the Captains were in deep discussion in varying states of distress, no doubt about the upcoming confrontation with the Diamond kingdom.

She looked around at the Captains for one particular one. Her eyes met Julius’ and she grinned openly. She gave him a hesitant wave at the confused tilt of his head. Maybe he forgot her? A few Captains looked her way along with Julius, suspicious of the woman by the window.

Aika quickly sobered as she lightly touched the window. She wasn’t here for him. Maybe she’ll talk to him after whatever her Uncle needed her to do. He had been plaguing her mind for _days_ , like who gave him permission to do that? Maybe another sit down with him will reveal something about him that will annoy her nitpicking self and she will completely stop idealizing him. Yeah, that’s a good idea.

She slipped between the windows and into the room, as quiet as a breeze. All the captains except Julius and Captain Vermillion stood and moved to attack but Lord Raymond whipped his head around and motioned the Captains to stop.

“Why use the window when there is a perfectly serviceable door, Aika?” her Uncle asked in a bored voice.

“Why use the door when there is a perfectly serviceable window, sir?” She retorted as she took off her hat with a flourish. He shook his head with a scoff.

“Enough with the cheek.”

“Yes, sir.”

Aika clasped her hands and clicked her heels together as she turned to the conference table where all the standing Captains sat down slowly, all eyes on her. They all might’ve seen her around the Magic Knights Headquarters, sitting on the floor in the hallways or in the gardens with a bunch of books and papers scattered haphazardly around her or running around with maids and guards but they would’ve all forgotten about her, thanks to her amulet. And she hasn’t been in the Clover Kingdom in a couple years so she doesn’t expect anyone except Captain Vermilion to remember her.

She had always worked behind the scenes on this continent, running her businesses, private clandestine services, professional development, etc, so she had to stay lowkey to protect her identity and her work. But when she needed to continue her work without arousing suspicion and provide information to the next Wizard King, she needed to step up into the spotlight once again, at least until some trust was established. A spy network was incredibly valuable to her Uncle and his agenda to clean up the criminal underworld from the worst of its traits like slavery, forced prostitution, anti-monarchist movements, and apocalyptic cults. 

But Aika herself had personal value for her strategies, diplomacy, connections, and experience in foreign warfare. And so, here she was, her position and identity exposed along with her physique too coincidentally, in the tight, black sweater and thigh length skirt she wore.

_The price I pay for trying to feel sexy today._

She was pleased to note Julius’ eyes roving over her with a small smile. She winked when his eyes met hers. He looked away with a small blush. Aika wouldn’t mind working with such delicious eye candy.

“This is Aika Tolliver,” Raymond began as he faced the Captains. “She will help us pinpoint which General will be attacking us this time and where.”

“Who is she, exactly?” The Purple Orcas’ captain asked as she leaned forward, her gray eyes scrutinizing her.

“Her curriculum vitae is irrelevant,” Raymond sat down in his chair with a heavy sigh. “What she knows and what she can do for us is the only thing we’re going to discuss today.”

“Gosh, is he like this all the time?” Aika asked jokingly as she leaned on the table and crossed her arms. While she won’t outright tell them that she was his niece, if he was going to bring her in front of the captains, she was definitely going to have a lot of fun implicating all sorts of things that will leave the captains confused about who she is to the Wizard King. 

“Aika, not the time.”

“Alright, alright,” she set her hat down on his desk with an amused smile and took out a leather-bound notebook and a fountain pen. She looked up at the captains with a mild look.

“Long story short, I’m an off-the-record tactical strategist who helps Lord Raymond every now and then,” Aika looked down and flipped through the pages of her notebook as she continued. “I didn’t want my name to be known for my own privacy and the safety of my assets. That’s why I was never brought in but I assume the situation is dire if Master Raymond wanted to bring me in front of the captains.”

Said captains stayed silent as they processed the vague information. Aika looked apologetically at Julius. For all Julius knew, she lied to him but he shrugged and shook his head with a small smile.

“So what is the issue here?” She quickly skimmed the papers next to her. There were several different combinations of squads that could be dispatched but it was all useless if they didn’t know which general or _generals_ they would be facing. In her opinion, they should bring down the hammer and send out all the squads and end this mess once and for all. “I’ve already told Master Raymond what generals and where _and_ I’ve given him the maps of the location of the fortress their brigades have relocated to. I've also said when. They are going to execute their plan next Saturday.”

“Captain Silva here doesn’t believe me,” Raymond crossed his arms and glared at the silver-haired man.

“Well, now it’s even worse,” Silva slammed his fist on the table. “because your information comes from a dubious source we have never heard of!” he barked, spittle flying as he pointed an accusing finger at Aika. Raymond was about to retort but Aika only hummed thoughtfully at his outraged face. 

She knew Captain Silva and Uncle Raymond had a fierce rivalry because they both had Water Magic, but it should’ve ended when her Uncle became the Magic Emperor. But Captain Silva still seemed to hold a grudge and Aika also knew that he had become severely depressed and irritable after Lady Acier’s death and the stress of this war was really getting to him so she bit back a reflexively cutting remark. She took the diplomatic route instead.

“I definitely understand where you’re coming from but I can assure you that this information is from our spies in the Diamond Kingdom.”

“Lies! We don’t have any spies in the Diamond Kingdom!”

Julius quickly moved to interject when he noticed Aika’s cheek twiched in annoyance. A verbal smackdown like the one he got that night wouldn’t be received well by the proud captain. He saw how easily she shrugged off the pressure he put on her, so he wasn’t taking any chances with an actual confrontation.

“Well, let’s not get hasty,” he addressed the captains gently. He turned to Aika and quickly masked a smile when her face lit up. “Even if we did have spies, the information they’ve given us is wrong. We destroyed the South Fortress last month and Lord Raymond told us that two brigades have relocated to the South Fortress which I assume is the information from our ‘spies.’”

“You assumed correctly, Julius.” His lips twitched up at being addressed so familiarly in front of everyone. “And forgive Master Raymond for not clarifying, he’s just a little sleep-deprived,” she pursed her lips when the captains threw her confused looks at that causal comment. “They’ve moved their operations in the former South Fortress to a black site previously used for human experimentation and other R&D.”

Silence fell over them. Human experiments. While the captains _were_ aware, being reminded of what they had read in the reports of said experiments sickened them. 

Aika quietly flipped through her notebook.

“Here it says that Generals Hennequin and Allard have mobilized their forces into the black site, now called the South Fortress.”

“And how can we know for sure,” Julius began mutely. “That what you are saying is true?”

“I’ve been working for the Wizard King for years, providing him with information regarding foreign matters—”

“And don’t forget about unsolicited advice on domestic ones,” Her Uncle’s muffled voice quipped, unaffected by the mention of human experiments. She threw a mocking glare at his head which was now buried in his arms.

“And most of the information I was given was accurate and useful. We take _very_ good care of our assets so malicious betrayal and misinformation is incredibly rare. I can assure you that this information is accurate.”

Julius and the other briefly scrutinized her for any tells that she was lying and were satisfied that they didn’t find any. While they believed her, they were still wary. Aika sighed.

“Now, if we’re done discussing whether facts are actually facts, let’s get back to the planning. We can’t agree on what squads to send,” Raymond groused as he pushed maps of movements that a trio of squads will follow towards Aika. Each map was a different combination of 3 squads and movements and attack sequences. It was all on the surface. But Aika left her Uncle notes in his folder last night about new intel. The two Diamond generals purchased rights to build exclusive tunnels to the Main Channels from the black site which was _underground,_ the Main Channels that lead directly into the Common Realm in the Clover Kingdom.

Aika suppressed the fear that struck her heart and turned to glare at her Uncle for real this time. He didn’t look at the notes she had left and now he was making completely wrong moves. The wrong moves that would cost many civilian lives.

“Master Raymond,” she nearly growled. “I assume you haven’t looked at the new intel and notes I left last night?”

He glared back.

“What new intel?”

“New intel saying that the Diamond Generals bought rights to tunnel into the Main Channels from the black site.”

“What?!”

She sifted through his papers and found the thin folder and showed him the notes and explained the situation.

“So there would most likely be a fight on the surface for a distraction while they invade us through the tunnels, meaning more than two brigades will attack us.”

Aika nodded gravely.

“I’m sorry, what are these tunnels and channels you’re talking about?” The captain of the Praying Mantis, Marcus, asked. A few others nodded, confused as well.

Captain Vermillion cleared his throat to draw attention to him. He sat up straight and his deep voice rang clearly through the room,

“They are talking about The Innkeeper’s Tunnels. The Innkeeper is a neutral, underground organization that provides safe houses indiscriminately. And in order to get to the safe houses, the Innkeeper had built a tunnel system. This tunnel system was built centuries ago and today it’s also used for underground travel, trade, and the black market, across the continent. It is the only way we trade for magic gems with the Diamond Kingdom because of the current hostilities,” He turned to Aika. “I don’t believe The Innkeeper would allow them to send brigades through the tunnels.”

Aika masked her surprise that he even addressed her. He had completely and deliberately cut her off after she broke up with one of his children and now he was talking to her all of a sudden?

Despite his surprising behavior, Aika agreed with his explanation. She remembered when she tailed him on his frequent missions to the criminal underworld so he knew what he was talking about.

“I agree, The Innkeeper wouldn’t allow them, but they have no real means to stop them. They don’t have a private army and the magical barriers won’t hold against two whole brigades.”

“Then they will call in a favor.”

“From who?”

Captain Vermillion leveled his gaze at her.

“From you.”

“No,” Aika said with absolute finality. He raised an eyebrow as she bristled. 

“‘No, they won’t ask,’ or ‘No, you won’t do it?’” He knew she wouldn’t and did he really need to bring up her past _here?_

“No to both, Leonardo,” Raymond cut in with a scowl and changed the topic. “We need to be ready to face them under and over, and that means all squads need to roll out.”

“Actually,” Julius interjected. “We should leak the information that we know,” he suggested. The captains turned to Julius, not surprised by his unorthodox idea. He may be the youngest of the captains at the table at nearly thirty-six years old, but he was also the smartest and the strongest. His unexpectedly brilliant ideas and the strategic way he built his squad left no doubt that he would be a great military leader as The Magic Emperor.

“Why would we do that?” Captain Silva asked as he pressed his fingers to his temples, knowing full well that there was a good explanation coming.

“Because this plan to use the underground tunnels would only work if we are unaware. If they know that _we_ know, and that we would come prepared to the tunnels, they will change their plans. They will think that their element of surprise and lack of resistance is gone, so their chances of winning decreased. And since they don’t know that we leaked it, they would think that we put our squads underground for their ‘attack.’ So they will put _their_ troops on land or air to take us on.”

“But instead,” Aika began quietly as his idea became clear. “we will be prepared to attack with the full weight of our army _above ground_ and overwhelm them completely, giving us a chance to negotiate a ceasefire.”

“No,” Julius laced his fingers together with a cool expression. “ _We demand a surrender._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Julius is lowkey scary in canon and i plan to show more of that in this fic.  
> The end was just a lil taste, but in battle? oooooh I can't wait to write ruthless Julius ;))))


	3. A Reprise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They're literally drunk lmaooo

Aika spent hours until evening helping Raymond and the rest of the captains to come up with formations for every thinkable scenario while enjoying food and drinks brought in by the servants. And then she happily spent the last hour with Julius to come up with contingencies for specific scenarios while the captains and the Magic Emperor either tried to relax, or took a power nap while the two laboured through.

It was early evening when they finished, and all the captains packed up their papers, maps, notes and the official plan. Aika took off her heels and sat down in the nearest empty chair with a groan. Captains walked by and patted her on the back sympathetically and in ‘goodbye’ as they dragged their feet out the door. All except one.

Aika laid her chin on the heel of her palm as she watched Julius decant what she assumed was whiskey, with half-closed eyes. A warm hand on her shoulder drew her out of her drowsy state.

“Aika.”

“Yes, uncle?” she looked drunkenly over her shoulder. He looked as tired as she felt. Raymond’s eyes flickered to Julius before he looked at her reprimandingly. She shrugged imperceptibly and rolled her eyes and shook her head, telling him not to worry.

“Captain Julius wanted to speak with you for a moment.”

She yawned as she nodded. She assumed he would. She told him she was a traveling mage then she turned up at his meeting saying she was also a tactical strategist. Raymond squeezed her shoulder and laid a hand on her head.

“You did a really good job today.”

Aika gave him a toothy smile. “Thank you,” she murmured. 

He patted her head gently and nodded at Julius, who nodded back. Raymond silently made his way to the door and gave Aika one last, fond look and closed the door.

“Would you like some whiskey?” Julius asked sedately.

“Yes, please,” she took the Old Fashioned from him and smiled when her fingers brushed his. He took the seat opposite to her with his own glass, which was a significantly smaller portion than hers, and appraised on another.

Tall, short, blond hair, a killer jawline and deep, violet eyes twinkling at her in mild amusement. Aika stared hungrily at his bow-shaped lips as she bit her own.

“Is this what you meant by very soon?” Her eyes flicked up to Julius’ as she took a sip. Then it became clear. Her uncle was supposed to organize a meeting between Aika and Julius to let him know about her services but he called her in during a key, strategic meeting for her to show off her skills instead.

Aika nodded and gave him a lazy smile. She stood up with her heels in one hand and walked over to her backpack next to the window. She swiped the fake plans she needed to pass on to Jayce so he could deliver them to the Diamond Kingdom. Then, she paused abruptly when she noticed the trees she planted earlier. 

It was getting dark out and the wisteria trees shone brighter than she had ever expected. They lit up the whole area. Some guards, a maid and the Coral Peacocks and Praying Mantis Captains stood around and admired the trees and its flowers.

“What’s wrong?” Julius came up next to her in a flash. “Oh.” He noticed the trees

“They’re beautiful…” she whispered.

“They haven’t been there before…”

Aika turned to him with a coy smile.

“I planted them this afternoon for Master Raymond,” she put her sunhat, heels and papers into her backpack and shrugged it on. “Him and my father loved to relax in the gardens together when they were younger,” Aika opened the windows, swung her legs over the windowsill and perched herself comfortably on it.

“Master Raymond’s your Uncle,” He plopped down next to her, his starry eyes still on the bright, purple trees. “Why’d you reveal that to me?” He looked at her from the corner of his eye. “Sharing classified information with family members can get you and most likely Master Raymond arrested if you don’t work for him in official capacity.”

“I know.”

“Then why?”

Aika took a sip and sighed in satisfaction. This whiskey burned _real_ good, and it soothed the nervousness in her gut. She turned to Julius and answered,

“I wanted to be candid with you and continue to be so because I want to leave you with no doubt that I’ve never lied.”

“It’s alright. Your work needs a cover so I understand any ‘lies’ about that.”

“Oh.” She expected the absolute opposite of that reaction.

Julius laughed when her face fell.

“And don’t worry, nobody is arresting anyone. You proved yourself to be quite skilled today. All the Captains were impressed and you got them all to agree on a plan which is nearly impossible,” A wry scoff escaped his lips as he shook his head. “Every rule has an exception and _you_ were exceptional today,” he winked at her. She averted her eyes with a blush and a small smile.

The pair continued to admire the wisteria trees in comfortable silence as they took an occasional sip. While it was nice, Aika hated the silence because the ringing in ears got louder so she decided to continue speaking.

“You remember the night we met?” Julius nodded as he took another sip to hide a smirk.

“Felt like a dream, to be honest.” 

She turned to him with a perplexed look.

“A dream? What do you mean?”

He let out a wry chuckle.

“See, this one night, I just wanted to see some magic,” he began in an amused voice, “but then I got caught in this beautiful woman’s bear trap in the middle of the woods,” Aika’s mouth went dry at his intense gaze. “I discover she’s the only other Time Mage around. Then I get verbally thrashed and then we’re all friendly,” He threw back the last sip and sighed with a thoughtful look. “In fact, it never felt like we were strangers. We talked about Magic for hours. Turns out, the woman is not only really pretty but also super smart. It seemed like we had a lot in common,” he set his glass on the floor inside the room behind him and leaned forward on his knees with his eyebrows furrowed and a pensive look.

“We parted ways with a vague promise of seeing each other again and then the next day, I was told about a woman who’s been working with Master Raymond named ‘Aika Tolliver,’ someone who would possibly have to work with me after the war is over and I’m Magic Emperor,” he said, looking pointedly at her. Aika shrugged helplessly with a crooked smile.

She turned and stared at her glass as she swirled her drink. It was obvious he had been thinking about that night a lot and is absolutely shameless about it. She would be lying if she said she didn’t think of it often too. She had read up on all the files about him, his achievements, character profiles and open cases after that night. It was actually quite surprising that he wasn’t badgering her to show her more magic if the description of his quirks were true. 

It was an open secret, apparently, that Captain Julius Novachrono was often child-like and easily distracted by magic. He loved nothing more than to wander around the kingdom to witness more variety of magic than do his work. As far as they both knew, they were the only two arcane stage Time Mages. The Freese family had also used a form of Time Magic but it was a much weaker version. 

But he wasn’t exactly like the character profile stated. Yes, he was fascinated by magic, in fact they discussed Magic for hours the first night they met, but he wasn’t badgering her like it was the only thing he ever did like the reports implied. She was actually _really_ flattered because he seemed more interested in _her_ than her magic.

Aika knew that she shouldn’t court Julius while still wanting to maintain a professional relationship but she couldn’t really help it. _He was so damn tempting._

“You sir, are,” she began as she bit her lip. “quite bold, I must say,” she said, addressing his beginning remarks. She shivered and hugged herself as a cold gust of wind swept by. Julius moved to take his cloak off and offer it to her but Aika took the edge of his cloak with a mischievous grin and wrapped it around her as she pressed herself into his side.

“Another thing we share in common,” she whispered as she nearly brushed her nose against his. Maybe a whole glass of whiskey was a bad idea. She was a little tipsy and a little too comfortable.

Julius parted his lips in shock. That was _not_ expected. He knew he should be talking to her about what Master Raymond discussed with him: about her providing information about Clover’s neighbors, the underground, and covert missions. He was just being his flirtatious self to maybe bring her guard down but _damn,_ two can play this game too. He recovered with a grin and wrapped an arm around her waist and held her close.

“I guess it is.”

She flashed a satisfied smile and turned to look back at the trees. She laid her head against his collar and took in a deep breath. The familiar, sweet smell of ozone came wafting from the man next to her. It was kind of like how her younger brother’s magic used to smell mixed with something that was purely Julius so she couldn’t help but smile at that. But as far she knew, Julius didn’t have any lightning magic like her brother, so she turned and pressed her nose to his collarbone to investigate the smell.

“Hey, that tickles!”

She pulled back with a laugh at his affronted look.

“Sorry, sorry.”

“It’s alright,” He assured her as he gave her one of those smiles where his eyes went soft and Aika felt like melting right then and there. She looked away before she did something stupid like kiss him silly.

There was another comfortable silence except for a shiver here and there from Aika which made Julius tighten his fingers on her hip. She controlled her breathing as she got warmer and pressed closer into his side. She had absolutely no shame.

“Hey,” he began as they both watched the sun set over the glistening trees. “I have a question about what Captain Leonardo said earlier.”

Aika looked up at him.

“About The Innkeeper?”

“Sort of,” he furrowed his brows again. “Why would The Innkeepers ask you for a favor if they had to face the two brigades? How would you help them?”

She tensed at his questions.

“I don’t mean to pry. Master Raymond has explained what you do for him in very vague terms, and your dossier was very bare. So, I want to slowly get to know you, either for work,” he looked at her shyly. “Or for just you.”

She was ready to get aggressively cagey and defensive again but she couldn’t help but melt again at his words. This man has been nothing but nice and cordial to her and she really needed to rein in her anger. Aika had also basically promised that she won’t lie to him, so she needed to tell him. And besides, she was a hatchet man for her Uncle and if she needed to continue being one when Julius was promoted, he needed to know.

She took his other hand with a fortifying breath. She brushed the back of it with her thumb in silent apology for her oversensitive reaction that he had no doubt noticed. But he was quick to reassure her nonetheless. He was patient and kind… 

Does he want her to work for him or does he want to seduce her? In the direction he was going, it seemed like both to Aika.

She squared her shoulders, excited about the possibilities and answered his question.

“ _If_ they called me for a favor because two brigades rolled up in their tunnels,” she looked at him blankly. “I would take care of it.”

An intrigued smile crept onto Julius’ face.

“Really?” He turned his nose up with a taunting look. “And how would you do that?”

“I will try to be diplomatic first.”

“Good idea,” he nodded approvingly. “And if that doesn’t work?”

She bit her lip and looked away.

“Then, I would bring the private army to settle things.”

“Wow, you’re really The Dagger?! I would love to see you fight one day! How—”

“Uncle Ray calls me ‘The Dagger?’ That’s—”

“A badass title, Aika? Yes, it is.”

Aika pinched Julius’ side with a laugh, drawing out an undignified yelp out of him.

“That’s a cringey name, Julius!”

“Okay, okay! But I’m not the one who said it!”

She looked away with an exaggerated ‘hmph.’

“He calls me that because he thinks it’s funny that I always carry a dagger,” she scoffed as she shook her head. “And besides, ‘Wizard King’ is a _way_ better title,” she said childishly. She fiddled with the edge of her skirt for a moment before she noticed that Julius went quiet.

“What’s wrong?”

“ _You want to be the Wizard King?_ ”

A beat.

Aika gaped as her lips twitched in suppressed laughter.

“Wh-What?! _No!_ ” She couldn’t hold it anymore and burst out laughing.

“I’m so sorry I’m laughing,” she wheezed as Julius looked over at her in concern. “I have not wanted to be Wizard King since I was 8, and, and,” she breathed deeply before she continued laughing again. She apologized profusely as she tried to catch her breath.

“I don’t know why that’s funny to you,” Julius grumbled with a small smile. 

“No, no, it’s the way you _asked._ Like the sheer disbelief in your voice was _hilarious._ I’m so sorry, I don’t know why that’s so funny.” She wiped a stray tear. He had _no_ idea.

“It’s just,” she took a deep breath. “I’ve given up on becoming Wizard King when my little brother said he wanted to be one too. Actually, I don’t even know why I wanted to be Wizard King in the first place. I was just a peasant in the Forsaken Realm who didn’t even know her attribute.”

“You were a peasant?” Julius blurted. “But isn’t your uncle a noble?”

Aika laughed. “My Uncle was a commoner who married into nobility and my father went to the Forsaken Realm to paint landscapes but fell in love and settled down there. So, I’m technically peasant-born...” she finished quietly, expecting Julius to maybe move away or be disgusted.

“Ohhh, that makes sense,” he nodded thoughtfully. He loosened his hold and turned to look at her with a starry look. “Will I get to see you on the battlefield though? I’ve heard so many great things about The Dagger and I want to see how _you_ fight with Time Magic!”

“You’re not going to see me fight for a long while, Julius.” Aika was done fighting, especially other’s battles. It was why she left the Diamond Kingdom in the first place. She only ever saw her daughter during the weekends and the stress of her work, fighting and planning was getting to her mental health. She wasn’t going to fight again unless someone forced her hand.

“Aw, come on! Not even as part of an overwatch unit?”

“That’s a solid maybe,” she objected as she put her glass away. She wasn’t really the type to stand by and watch so she _may_ change her mind after this weekend. But, after her ordeal with the Diamond Kingdom and their resistance movement, she was a lot more reluctant to pick up her swords again.

“Hmm,” he touched his chin. “Maybe,” Julius regarded her with a suggestive look. “I can change your mind.”

“Oh?” She raised an eyebrow in interest. _He moves really fast._ “And how do you pl—”

He quickly attacked her sides with his fingers causing her to squirm as she pursed her lips shut and stopped any laughs or screams from escaping. Tickling her? Aika hoped for something _way_ more different. She composed herself as she shook her head when he began to try harder.

“I think,” she began in a shaky voice. “That you’re just looking for an excuse touch me.”

She nearly slipped off her perch but Julius quickly caught her and looked at her with a pout.

“Can you blame me?”

“Not as long as I get to return the favor!”

And before Aika’s hands could reach his sides, Julius launched himself off the windowsill, towards the gardens as he threw a grin over his shoulder. 

He wasn’t childish, he was just a mess of gorgeous chaos, and she could see it in the ever-present twinkle in his eyes that threatened to shine like the stars.

“Julius!” She leapt after him.

He landed gracefully on his feet and made a big show of running in the direction of the brightly lit wisteria grove as he laughed.

“Only if you can catch me!”

Aika landed behind him and ran after him with a wild smile. She ran past the guards, captains and the maid admiring the grove and followed Julius into the center where she created a clearing earlier that day. Aika blinked and he disappeared.

She situated herself in the center of the grassy area and spun on her heel as she scanned the area for an ambush. She was a Time Mage too so speed wasn’t really an advantage if he wanted to sneak up on her but she was too tired to properly use Mana Zone without accidentally suffocating someone so she avoided using her magic. She had to trick him instead.

She pretended to look in a direction longer than she did before and as predicted, a blond blur moved at her eight o’clock and she sidestepped him. 

Aika grabbed Julius’ arm and twisted it behind his back and tackled him to the ground. He fell with an ‘oomph’ and groaned when she straddled his back. He leaned on his left side to avoid aggravating the bandaged wound on his right with considerable strain as she pressed down on him. Aika watched with a pleased smile and a blush as Julius breathed hard below her.

“You really thought you could just get away with it?”

He turned his head to the side with a cheeky grin.

“I don’t know anyone as fast as me so yes, I did.”

She retaliated by folding her legs underneath her like a pretzel and put all her weight on him.

“Don’t sit on my back!” He exclaimed as he struggled to buck her off. She pressed his arm harder with one hand and forced his head down with the other.

“Hey, Miss Tolliver!” Marcus, the Praying Mantis’ captain, called out as he entered the clearing with Leah, the Coral Peacock’s captain, at his side. Aika quickly masked her face with a playful smile and waved ‘hello’ at him.

“I didn’t know you were such good friends with Julius already. What did he do?” He asked with a laugh.

“Miss Aika!” Evan exclaimed in worry as he came running into the clearing, his hands ablaze with fire. Aika waved his concerned, mother-henning self off as she slid off of Julius’ back.

“I’ve known this man for less than 24 hours,” she addressed Captain Marcus as she made herself comfortable on the grass. “and he had already tried to push me out the window!”

Julius quickly sat up to defend himself.

“Push you?! I didn’t push you and it wasn’t _on purpose!_ ” He exclaimed indignantly. Aika crossed her arms and raised one sardonic brow. That was a lie to cover for him but if he wanted to blow it, he was welcome to do so.

“Oh, would you like to tell them what _exactly_ you were doing then?” she motioned to Evan, Captains Leah and Marcus, who were becoming more invested in this conversation by the second. If he wanted to tell everyone that they were flirting, that was fine by her.

She turned in surprise when Jayce, her other guard, and Ellie, her maid walked into the clearing with cautious expressions. Perfect! Now, she could hand off the fake plans for the Diamond Kingdom. Aika waved them over with a happy grin as Julius stammered next to her.

She looked at him smugly, silently daring him to tell what he was doing that made her nearly fall off. He wiped the dirt off his face as he looked at her pleadingly. She hid a smile at his puppy-dog eyes and conceded.

“The window was opened and I was standing by it and he accidentally bumped into me. He didn’t say sorry so I chased him and he jumped out the window and I followed,” Aika lied. Evan looked between her and Julius in suspicion while Ellie and Jayce hid a snicker. 

“That sounds like Julius alright,” Marcus chuckled as Leah shook her head.

“Lovely trees, aren’t they?” Julius asked a little forcefully. Aika looked around and nodded at his remark, letting him change the subject. It was completely dark out and the flowers shone brightly with a purple tint, completely lighting up the area. Aika would’ve made some flower crowns with the Wisteria if they didn’t sting her so much. 

“Let’s continue speaking in the meeting room,” Julius addressed Aika as he stood up with a groan. He nodded at the Captains and the guards and offered a hand to Aika to get up. She nodded and took out the fake battle plans from her backpack and handed them to Jayce as the rest watched curiously.

“I was brought in today by Master Raymond, so they know,” Aika quickly explained when Jayce and Ellie threw panicked looks at the Captains. She took Julius’ hand and stood up next to him. “Give them directly to Generals Allard and Hennequin, okay?”

Jayce nodded seriously and tucked the papers inside his robe. The Captains turned to Aika in surprise.

“Are they your spies?” Leah asked in disbelief.

“Yep, the three of them are my assets. I trust you all can keep this little secret?” she pressed a finger to her lip with an enigmatic smile. “Master Raymond is already aware of them.” Aika let out huff when Julius gave them starry looks.

“What kind of magic do you guys use? Does it help you guys in spy work? Well, magic is too flashy so do you have transformation magic or something? I would think that would be the most usef—”

“Julius,” Aika pulled him back by his fur cape as he got all up in their space. “The answers to your questions are classified. Please don’t make them uncomfortable.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, haha!” He rubbed the back of his head with a sheepish smile. Sometimes, he just forgets himself when it comes to magic. He turned to Aika with a small smile.

“I suppose we should continue speaking in the conference room?” He offered an arm to her. She nodded and took his arm graciously. Any excuse to touch him was fine by her. They both waved ‘bye’ to the slightly perplexed crowd and walked back towards the tower as they threw secret looks at each other.

Ellie waved back in confusion. Jayce wound an arm around her shoulder as he leaned heavily on her, his eyes still on Aika. Evan hummed thoughtfully next to them.

“What do you think they’re talking about?” he asked. Aika and Julius flew up together to the window and back into the conference room, linking hands as they did.

“I believe it’s about the Captains’ retirements,” Leah piped up. “and Julius’ ascension to the throne.”

“The throne?” Jayce asked as he reluctantly turned to her disbelief. “He’s just going to be the Wizard King, right?”

“King Augustus enjoys a stress-free lifestyle,” Marcus said as he shook his head. “He may resent Master Raymond for having equal power to the king during wartime but he certainly takes advantage of it and passes all his paperwork to the Wizard King.”

They all nodded in understanding as a smirk crossed Evan’s face. The others might not have seen it in the dark, but he had certainly noticed how they linked hands when they were further away. The way his boss looked at the young Captain...Things might get interesting around here depending on how tonight goes…

* * *

Aika made herself comfortable on one end of the couch as Julius poured her a smidge of whiskey and settled down on the other end. She tucked one leg underneath her as she turned to face him. 

“Am I going to have to drink by myself?” she asked cheekily as he put the decanter away. He patted his chest lightly.

“I have a slow-acting rotting curse on my liver. It’s going to be a while before that goes away so I can’t drink.”

Aika’s demeanor turned serious almost instantaneously.

“I heard there was a hired gang of curse mages in the last battle. Was it from one of them?”

He nodded slowly.

“Couldn’t you just rewind to the time when the curse didn’t exist?”

“Ah, no. Immediately after getting hit with the curse, they tied a mana resistance spell and its duration to it so I can’t dispel it yet. The healer mage said another week or two before I could begin to heal.”

“Ooh, that’s a rare curse combination. Combining a curse and a reinforcement spell is difficult,” Aika said, nodding as she fished through her backpack. “And even then, a mana resistance is a gamble unless you are very specific with your spell, or else your target is completely impervious to all attacks.” 

She pulled out a vial of clear liquid and waved it at him.

“Here, catch!”

Julius caught it and examined it. It had a unique smell that he couldn’t name. He thought it smelled kind of like thyme and rain.

“Mana resistance is a good spell so there wasn’t a potion to remove it,” she motioned at the vial in his hand. “until recently.” 

He examined it more thoroughly as he understood what this little potion meant. Mana resistance was actually annoying when it lasted longer than it should but no one had really developed a potion to counter it.

“Was it developed because soldiers aren’t able to heal themselves in battle because of resistance?”

“Among many other reasons.”

“Wow, so cool! I haven’t been keeping up with potion-making and I don’t think my healer did either!” He moved to uncork the vial but Aika stopped him with one hand. She didn’t realize she had even moved. They both looked at where their hands touched with a jolt and blushed.

“Sorry, I was just-”

“It’s okay,” Julius grinned at her, a blush still present on his face. “I don’t mind.”

Aika lips twitched with a shaky smile. She cleared her throat and focused on the vial.

“You need to fill it up with your mana first before you drink it. You can only dispel it-”

“With my own mana because I can only overwhelm a mana resistance spell from the inside out.”

“Hey, you know your stuff! An unrivaled magic nerd like they say I see.”

He grinned proudly and did as she told him. Aika watched as the vial glowed in his hands as he poured his mana into it. He uncorked it and raised it in cheers before throwing it back.

He handed the vial back to her and hovered a hand over his liver. Accelerating time wasn’t an option because that would leave him with a damaged liver. Rewinding time would mean the mana resistance would be back.

“What are you waiting for?”

Julius looked up at her big, expectant eyes and he forgot to breathe for a second. The moonlight from the window illuminated half of her face in the dimly-lit room and lashes fanned her cheeks when she blinked at him innocently.

“Um,” He motioned vaguely at his chest as it rose unsteadily. “I can’t rewind or the mana resistance would be back.”

“And accelerating would leave your liver damaged,” she finished with a thoughtful look on her face. Julius’ mind went blank when his eyes focused on her mouth. They spoke about magic with the same passion as his, lips that turned pink for a moment whenever she bit her lip flirtatiously, lips that would feel so soft pressed against his own— 

“Hey, Julius?” she asked lowly. Gooseflesh rose at the nape of his neck when she leaned closer. He willed himself to breathe.

“Yes?”

“You kind of spaced out. Are you okay?”

“Yes!” Julius shook his head to clear his thoughts and looked at her properly with a shining smile. “Yes, I’m feeling fine.”

“Okay, good,” Aika’s shoulders fell slightly as she gave him a relieved look. “I got an idea on how to rewind and step over the mana resistance. Well, it’s a theory. We would have to use combination magic though,” she said with a mischievous smile. That caught Julius’ attention. He had never used combination magic before! People with arcane magics often can’t.

“Aren’t our rewind spells the same?”

“Not necessarily. Your rewind spell is actually very different from mine.”

“Oh? In what way?” 

She grew more excited as her idea became more coherent.

“My rewind spell undos the effects but your rewind spell, it’s resurrection something, uh,” Aika snapped her fingers and lit up when she remembered. “Chrono Anastasis, right? In the description on your grimoire page, it said that it undos events and keeps using the rune ‘event’ over and over again, compared to mine where it says ‘effect.’”

Julius furrowed his brow as he absorbed that information.

“How are ‘effects’ and ‘events’ different?” Aika settled down closer to his side with an innocent smile.

“Say for example, I tore your shirt off and threw it to the side,” she began casually, willing her face to stay still when Julius’ eyes nearly bugged out. “If I used my rewind spell on the shirt, the tear would repair itself but that’s it. If you used your rewind spell, the tear would repair itself as the shirt makes its way back on you.”

He swallowed thickly as he processed the information.

“So you’re saying that my spell, er, has a bigger sphere of influence at the base than yours.”

“A bigger diametral place, yes. And I’ve experimented with my Time Magic and I’ve learned to use it in pieces rather than letting the spell run its course. I’ve skipped over certain effects when rewinding but it's really hard. _But_ , if I combined it with your magic where it distinguishes events specifically, I can differentiate the dispelling of mana resistance, get to the rotting curse, and rewind it!”

Julius gaped as Aika gave him a sunny look. He willed himself to breathe properly when her eyes flickered down to his lips.

“Do you get it?” He nodded as he gathered his wits and squared his shoulders. He lifted his hand, palm facing her as he let his giddiness take over. He was going to do combination magic for the first time! He’ll concentrate on that for now.

“Let’s do it then.”

Aika pressed her palm against his and nearly drew back when she realized how cold he was.

“Your hands are really cold,” she murmured. He smiled as a rush of cockiness overtook him.

“Maybe, you should keep them warm for me.” 

Aika paused a beat and stared as he raised an eyebrow. Oh, she wasn’t going to back down from a challenge.

She twisted her wrist and took his hand, brought it up to her lips and placed a slow, open-mouthed kiss on his knuckles. The bold move short-circuited Julius. He stared at her in mild surprise as she looked at him from beneath her lashes.

“It would be my pleasure,” she said softly. She laced her fingers with his and nodded in the general area of his chest.

“Should we get to it then?”

“Uh,” He blinked slowly as he tried to focus. “Yes. How do we do this?”

“Lend me some of your magic and I’ll rewind the wound,” Aika explained softly as she hid her amusement.

He nodded and closed his eyes and let his mana seep into her. He began hesitantly but relaxed when she squeezed his hand comfortingly.

Aika’s hand hovered over his liver and she watched in fascination as a blueish clock, very different from her own, spun counterclockwise. It kept spinning and accelerating until she knew she went back two weeks. 

This was much more effortless than doing it with her own magic where she had to calculate the exact moment she needed to skip and actually perform the spell. It was kind of amazing to feel a different kind of time magic slide against her own mana. She expected to have some issues because combination magic that wasn’t spur of the moment required a certain amount of trust, and the proof that he trusted her even a little bit set her heart racing.

Julius took a deep breath and exhaled in relief when it didn’t hurt.

“Wow, it feels so much easier to breathe!” He exclaimed as he touched his chest. He gave her a big smile. “Thank you!”

“Your welcome, and now you can finally join me.” Aika let go of his hand and handed her glass to him. She stood up with a wink and instead of bringing the nearly empty decanter, she walked back to the sofa with a bottle of whiskey and another glass in her hands.

He raised an eyebrow. She shrugged shamelessly.

“I hope you’re not a lightweight for both our sakes,” he jibbed as he took a sip.

“A full glass couldn’t get me tipsy, Julius. Another glass wouldn’t make too much of a difference,” she plopped down next to him and reclined as she crossed her legs.

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that, Aika.”

“Mm, if I want to wake up, brain all sore, among other things,” Julius choked. “who are you to stop me?” She patted his back as he recuperated. He cleared his throat and turned to her with a deadpan face as if to ask if that was really necessary. She giggled.

“So Time Magic,” Julius gritted out in an effort to change the topic. “What else do you think we could do with our combined magics?”

“Well…”

* * *

They talked about time, space, the end, and the beginning, till their glasses nearly emptied.

“Your teleportation spell is not a time-space spell! It’s literally spatial magic! How-”  
“Nonono, if I’ve been somewhere before, it’s a moment in time. I can’t really go back in time, but I can go back in _space_.”

Aika snorted derisively as she threw back the last sip in from the bottle.

“Yeah, whatever you say, space boy.” Julius huffed in mock anger. “I would’ve asked if you were for hire if you weren’t so busy trying to become king—I mean, Wizard King.”

“Speaking of hiring,” Julius began suddenly as he looked into his glass with uncharacteristic solemnity. “Would work for me? This meeting was supposed to be about me convincing you—”

“I thought it was the other way around,” Aika blurted. “I thought I had to convince you?”

“Oh...”

They burst out laughing.

“I think we were too busy talking magic to be convincing each other of anything,” Julius wheezed out between laughs.

Aika breathed deeply in a futile attempt to catch her breath.

“Well, I at least know that you would be fun to work with,” she giggled as she tried to get the last drops out of the whiskey bottle. She looked up when he spoke.

“But you still didn’t answer my question,” Julius took a sip as he crossed his legs. “Would you work for me?”

Aika barely registered what he said. Her eyes were only on the drop of whiskey on his lip. His tongue darted out to lick it and it set her blood on fire. She resisted the urge to squirm and instead focused on the glass in his hand.

“Yes, of course, I’ll work for you.”

He grinned.

“Great! Three ‘yeses!’”

She hummed as her hand slowly inched towards the glass on his hand.

“Can I have the rest of it?”

“What?!” He looked at his glass and swiftly raised his arm above him and out of her reach. “No!”

“Please?” She pouted. Julius’ face flushed redder.

“You’re already six sheets to the wind. Any more and we’re looking at alcohol poi—”

Aika plucked it out of his hand with a smirk.

“Hey!”

She clambered backwards to the opposite end of the sofa as he leapt after her. She kept him at bay with her legs as she attempted to drink from the glass but he pinned one leg down with his hip and stretched his arm out to grab it from her. Aika quickly shifted up and arched her back over the armrest and kept it out of his reach.

He grunted when she tried to tickle him with her other hand. Julius looked down to scowl at her as she gave him a shit-eating grin but their faces fell when they realized what position they were in.

Julius was hovering a few inches from her face and Aika’s hair was fanned out in a halo around her as her breathing grew heavier. 

He smiled drunkenly as his eyes flickered down to her lips. She pulled him gently by his cape and carefully brushed her lips against his, testing the waters, asking permission.

Suddenly, she was drowning in whiskey, lightning and the heady sensation of his insistent lips on hers.

Aika haphazardly set the glass down and threw her arms around his neck and kissed him with equal frenzy. 

He brushed the hair out of her face with featherlight touches and cupped her cheek tenderly. She knotted her fingers in his hair, lightly pulling as she went and cupped the nape of his neck, thumb lightly pressing on the flutter of his pulse. They hummed contentedly, as relief coursed through them. They have both been waiting for this moment since that night.

And suddenly, a knock sounded on the doors.

“Aika?”

Julius and Aika looked at each other in horror.

_Oh, shit._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- This was my longest chapter at whopping 7000 words!!!  
> \- Raymond really thought he was so slick naming her "The Dagger" hes just a really proud uncle😌


	4. At The Mercy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Julius' loneliness threatens to choke him but it's okay, because Aika is there to make sure he breathes.
> 
> Oh, and he's kinda gay and there's a daughter and an assassin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't mean to make it so angsty in the beginning actually but it kinda just happened. 
> 
> Italicised dialogue and quotation marks is foreign language while just italicised dialogue is emphasis.

Raymond slowly opened the door to find his niece and successor sitting incredibly close, legs crossed, and a glass in their hands as they looked at him with carefully guarded expressions. Or as carefully as two drunks could be. Aika jolted with a silent hiccup and excused herself quietly. Julius looked over at her fondly and bumped his knee with hers in sympathy.

Oh, something was definitely up. He’d thought he heard some strange noises in here, quite different from the murmur he expected to hear from standing near the doors. He thought there was something going on between the two, considering the fact that they seemed so familiar during the meeting today. Raymond thought they were perhaps friends, but they threw secret looks at each other too often and for too long to be _just_ friends.

Looking at them now, there wasn’t a wrinkle nor a hair out of place, unnaturally so. Maybe nothing happened. Maybe they just clicked when they started talking.

Julius spoke up first.

“Aika had let me know that she is your niece, Master Raymond. She had also agreed to continue providing me with information from her network.”

“That I did. Space boy here, and Captains Marcus and Leah also know about my—our operatives here.”

“Space boy? Jayce, Evan and Ellie?”

“This man uses Spatial Magic and says he doesn’t and yeah, who else at MK headquarters?”

Raymond sighed heavily when he noticed the empty whiskey bottle. Julius’ shouldn’t be drinking yet there he was with a half glass but he only seemed slightly tipsy and with the way Aika’s looking around the room, she was completely sloshed.

“Okay, as long as you two are on the same page, we’re good,” He nodded at Julius. “Could you please drop her off at the nearest house to the Demon Skull in Hage? I know it’s asking a lot but she can’t really ride the broom in her...state. I would owe you one.”

Julius stood up and bowed his head with a polite smile.

“No, sir. _I_ owe Miss Aika one. She helped heal the curse on my liver,” he pressed his formerly injured side for emphasis. “The least I could do is take her home.”

“Oh, that’s great! I’m glad you’re doing better now.” It didn’t surprise him that she figured out a way around his particular curse. She had always been quick on the uptake on all cases she had the chance to observe. This was no exception and he couldn’t be any prouder.

Raymond noted how he didn’t say drop her off. He watched as the two shared an amused look. Julius offered a hand to Aika and she stood up next to him and pressed into his side. 

Raymond raised an eyebrow at that. His suspicions were all but confirmed when Julius didn’t push her away. He would often keep drunk and excited women who threw themselves at him at an arm's length but he was perfectly fine with Aika. He smiled internally. While it was none of his business who his niece consorted with, he couldn’t think of a better match for her. They were both ruthlessly ambitious people with hearts of gold. He knew their professional relationship would be a match made in heaven but the personal interest they were showing in each other was a pleasant surprise. Julius was already like his son and his imminent successor, and the thought of having him around as family made him smile.

Julius picked up the file of his papers and tucked them into his robe pocket. He wrapped an arm around Aika’s shoulders and shared a smile with her.

“Oooh, I want to see how it feels to teleport,” Aika slurred as she grinned at Raymond. “Bye Uncle! Give my regards to Aunt Lydia.”

“Good night, sir. See you tomorrow.”

He nodded officiously as they phased out of the room.

* * *

Aika stumbled a bit as they suddenly found themselves on top of the Demon Skull. Julius wrapped an arm around her tightly as the wind threatened to knock her off her feet. She thanked him and cupped his cheek as she pressed a tender kiss on the other one. He stared at her, dazed.

“What was that for?” He murmured as he touched his cheek. Aika looked at him strangely then a mischievous smile lit up her face when she understood that he was genuinely confused.

“That was for going along with my charade that I was more drunk than I really was, for catching me when I was going to fall, and for having a really kissable face. All good reasons, don’t you agree?”

“Oh.” He looked away with a small smile. Aika paused for a moment when her heart skipped a beat at his smile. She was falling hard and fast, but it was exhilarating. She couldn’t help it. Maybe it may not go the way she wanted but for now, he was what she wanted. 

Though, she found it strange that he was a little shy and hesitant. He was a handsome man. Surely he was used to the company of women? Aika tilted his chin back towards her and looked at him imploringly.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Julius quickly denied as he looked away again. Maybe he’s worried about the war?

“Are you worried about the war?”

“Well, yes. But it’s not about that. It’s just—” he seemed to hesitate. “I’ve never been with someone as Julius.”

She tilted her head.

“What does that mean?” He seemed alone as guilt flashed across his features.

“I’ve only ever had flings with people in disguises, with transformation magic. I was too focused on becoming Wizard King that I would either risk scandal, distraction or getting my significant other hurt. By doing this, whatever this is, I’m exposing myself.”

Aika stood silently for a moment as she watched him with a heavy heart. While a small, but a loud part of her wanted to ask about the transformation magic, the implications of everything else he had just told her caused a painful twinge in her chest. Each moment she stayed quiet, the more regret racked up on Julius’ face. He stepped back and moved to turn around and walk away but Aika stopped him.

She took both his hands reverently and sighed. She had one simple question.

“You’ve never fallen in love?”

He was taken aback by that before his eyes grew somber.

“Once,” Julius answered truthfully.

“As Julius?” He hesitated.

“I’ve fallen in love as Julius...but he never looked at me that way.”

Aika’s eyes grew wide. Well, that wasn’t expected.

“He?’”

Julius panicked.

“I meant ‘she!’ ‘She!’ It’s a woman!” He laughed weakly as he rubbed the back of his neck in defeat. “Please forget everything I said,” he extricated himself from her grasp and turned away. “I’m going to go home and pray that you forget. I had a lovely time. I look forward to working with you in the future. Good Night!” Julius clenched his hands and moved to teleport.

“Wait!” Oh, boy. He was probably going to regret this but he stayed.

“I get it!” His shoulders slackened as he swung around in surprise.

“What? Get what?”

“I like men too so I get it!”

Julius let out an incredulous laugh as the last of his anxiety melted away. _This ridiculous woman!_ If he wasn’t falling for her already, he was now.

“But the question is, do you like women?”

A smirk crept up his face. Wasn’t it obvious? He stepped into her personal space and cocked his head at her.

“I think you know the answer to that,” he murmured as he drew her into a kiss. 

“Mm, I had to make sure,” she whispered against his lips. “Because you see, I do too.” She smiled when he gaped in surprise.

“You like women too?”

“Yes, you got nothing to worry about. Just another thing we share in common,” she fiddled with the collar of his fur cape as she stepped back. “Now, getting to the part where you feel exposed. There is no need for anything except a professional relationship between us if that is what you want.”

“What do _you_ want?” She paused. She wanted a lot but this wasn’t about her. His face was closed off, nearly emotionless if not for the little quirk in his eyebrow.

“Me?” He nodded. If he wanted to know, then here goes nothing.

“I want _you,_ Julius,” she grazed his cheek with the back of her knuckles. “But if trust is what I need to make you mine, then I’ll wait. I’ll wait for the war to end if that’s what you need. I’ll begin to help you more in a professional capacity, keep talking about all things magic with you, make excuses to take you to dinner, run my hands through your hair when no one’s looking, hope that when you become Wizard King, you’ll start to open yourself up more and I’ll probably fall in love along the way, because as terrifying as it is, I see a beautiful soul and I can’t help but be attracted to it like a moth to flame,” she wiped the involuntary tears that gathered at the edge of her lashes as she swallowed the lump in her throat. Due to her drunken disposition, she had basically laid her soul bare and _Gods above, that was terrifying._ She was really a dumb drunk.

But for some reason, she felt like she was forgetting something. Something really important.

Aika looked up at him with no small amount of hope as Julius stared at her, dazed. He felt a warmth blossom in his heart that made his toes curl and his hairs stand on the end. He had never been on the receiving end of such raw and emotional confession. Love was a far off dream for Julius ever since his very unrequited feelings for Zara, whom he had admired for being the shining example of a Magic Knight, then grew to love because there was nothing more charming than his smile.

Then here she stood, hope in her eyes as wind swept through her hair behind her, a fervent confession hanging between them. Not once during the night they had met and today had Aika never called him anything besides Julius. He wasn’t Captain Julius to her, or even the next Wizard King. He was just Julius. Not some fake name, fake face, or personality. He could belong. The realization made him feel like his chest was going to explode.

Julius held her face between his hands and pressed his forehead to hers as he composed himself. She wrapped her arms around him and cradled the back of his head and nudged him to bury his face in her neck.

Aika felt her heart beat like the rain as his breath quivered against her neck. Did she say something wrong? Was he okay?

“Could you,” he swallowed thickly as he tightened his hold around her. “Could you please just hold me tonight?”

“Of course,” Aika exhaled in relief. He pulled back and his eyes were slightly glassy and his face somber.

“Are you alri—”

He claimed her lips with his in an explosion of desperation. She wound herself tightly around him as she arched into the kiss. He kissed her till they couldn’t breathe. He kissed her with all the words he wanted to say but couldn’t. He poured his thanks and hope into it, hoping her brilliant mind would somehow catch it.

Aika tried to pull back to look at him and make sure he was okay, but his lips would seek hers again, open-mouthed and deliberate, determined to consume her whole.

Julius finally let go, slowly, his fingers still buried in her hair.

She found it hard to open her eyes as she swayed lightly on her feet.

“I like you too…” She blinked up at him with wide eyes when he spoke.

“You are the first person to not fawn over me because I’m a Magic Knight Captain or something or another. Talking to you was really fun,” He seemed a little shy to admit it but Aika smiled gratefully. She liked the fact that he liked to communicate too. “and you have a very kissable face too,” he said with a laugh. Aika drew him into a short kiss as they both giggled.

“You still want me to hold you?” She took his hand and looked searchingly in the direction of her house. Julius resisted a blush.

“If that’s okay with you. I don’t even know why I asked.”

“It’s completely fine. As long as you’re okay with my daughter accosting us in the morning.”

Aika winced when he whipped his head around. Whoops, that slipped by accident. Tomorrow was Saturday and a large part of her was always happy to see her daughter on the weekends, so _of course_ it slipped.

“Daughter?”

“Er, yes...She’s ten and I only see her on the weekends.” He looked at her as if he was seeing her for the first time.

“Wh-what happened to the father? If you don’t mind me asking…”

“I don’t mind and he’s still around. We share custody that is all,” she assured him as they walked to the edge of the demon skull.

“...Was he your husband?”

“Oh no! I was never married!” Aika laughed. “He just wanted my firstborn in exchange for a favor. That’s all.”

“What?!” He looked at her hysterically. “What kind of favor?”

“I mean, it’s a long story but he changed the tide of a war at my request and he wanted my firstborn so I instead made a deal to have his child,” she shrugged. “Life was strange back then.”

Julius gaped at her.

“I have so many questions.”

They looped arms as they floated off and down the demon skull as Aika told him a story of a man she met who called himself Arthur. She told him how Arthur changed the course of history many times in exchange for riches or favors. She explained how when she was trying for a child with him, she had become good friends with him and he agreed to let her raise the baby for a year and then share custody. She left out the part where he was actually a fae and only agreed to father a child with her, a human, as part of an unspoken eugenics experiment. They both were secretly fascinated by the fact that a half fae, half human hybrid would almost certainly have two attributes and therefore two grimoires.

“That’s very nice of him,” Julius laughed. This was the most bizarre story he had ever heard in his life.

“I know! They come every weekend so Holly could spend time with me.” Her face broke into a grin. “She’s amazing.”

Julius looked at her with keen interest as she described Holly to him. Moments like these were when he regretted the fact that he didn’t start a family sooner.

“She has blonde hair, my eyes and the _most_ adorable freckles across her nose and cheeks,” Aika giggled in remembrance. They turned right past a thicket of trees. “She may be young but she is determined to be well-versed in world politics and—” She immediately tensed up when her house came into view. She noticed that the lights were on in the living room of her house and the mana masking the fresh remnants of forbidden magic in the backyard was gone.

Julius looked curiously between Aika and the modest-looking two-story house.

“Is that where you live?”

She nodded tightly as her eyes roved over the front of the house, scanning for forced entry.

“Your family seems to be up,” he murmured disappointedly, completely oblivious.

“Julius,” she hissed. “I live alone and Holly does not come on weekdays. It’s a rule we enforce religiously for safety.”

Aika let go of him and flexed her wrists. The wards around her house were also down, meaning someone broke the stone tablet that holds the mana in place.

“Be on guard. We may have a home invader on our hands. I’ll explain later.”

Julius’ back immediately straightened, his eyes sober as he looked at her searchingly.

“Are you sure it’s a cause for concern,” he whispered loudly as they moved silently towards her home.

“Yes, I get assassins sent after me at least once a month. I wasn’t kidding when I said I got chased around the world for my magic.”

He threw her an alarmed look as she shook her head, assuring him that she will explain later.

They wordlessly jumped over the walls surrounding the house and creeped towards one of the windows that gave them a view into the living room. Aika peeked in carefully and nearly choked on her breath when she noticed who sat on the armchair directly facing the front door.

Julius cursed softly behind her.

“Is that your daughter?”

“Yes…”

Holly’s hands were in her lap, covered by a blanket but it was obvious that they were tied together along with her ankles also covered by the blanket. Her eyes were alert and focused resolutely on the front door, no doubt waiting for her arrival.

Aika scanned the living room with measured breaths. Anyone who dared to touch her daughter were going to feel the wrath of a thousand Suns. She knew they couldn’t do real harm to her because that was simply the nature of Holly’s magic. Her spatial magic simply didn’t allow anything to touch her if she willed it. But if Holly let herself be restrained, it meant she was waiting for either Arthur or Aika to deal with the threat.

_Where on Earth is Arthur?_

“We should go in through the front door,” Julius looked anxiously at Holly. “The unsub is probably hoping to ambush us as we interact with Holly since they went through the lengths to cover her restraints up.”

Aika agreed.

“We have code for anticipating surprise attacks like this. I’ll ask for the time and she’ll tell me which direction the unsub is hiding or will come from if they don’t attack already,”

They linked hands and nodded, all psyched up. They stood in front of the door and Aika raised a hand as she took a deep breath, and knocked.

“I’m home!” she exclaimed with false cheer as she opened the door.

“Hey, mom—Oh. You brought someone home.”

“Yeah, I hope you don’t mind,” she looked knowingly at Holly.

“What time is it? I already made some bread and tomato soup if you want to eat.”

Holly exhaled sharply, her eyes darted behind her.

“It’s really late. I think it’s 11 o’clock.”

Immediately, a dark figure jumped out of the closet door at Aika’s eleven o’clock, which was right behind Holly’s chair as they threw something in Julius’ direction. 

Julius caught it inside a light blue orb as his hand hovered in front of him.

The attacker held a dagger into Holly’s neck as their hood fell, revealing a gray-haired, fit man, who seemed to be approaching his fifties.

 _“Surrender now, Sarkany, or yer daughter’s dead,_ ” he growled in a foreign tongue. Aika vaguely noted it was a Thessalonican dialect as she scanned the man for any identifiers like a crest, tattoo or anything that could show any affiliation.

“Where’s your father, Holly?”

“Dad’s in the closet,” she swallowed thickly as she grew greener. “His daggers are iron.”

Aika tsked. Iron was deadly poisonous to the fae and could make half-fae sick. But she wasn’t going to be worried about Arthur because tonight was the waxing moon and his innate Moon Magic would neutralize any iron poisoning.

The man snarled as he pressed the dagger harder against Holly’s neck.

_“I don’t think you understand the seriousness of my words. Perhaps a cut or two would drive the point home?”_

_“No, I don’t think you understand,”_ Julius began in Greek, much to Aika’s surprise. _“If you don’t let go of her now, there will be a hole in your chest,”_ He raised a spheroid of his mana encircled by Roman numerals.

She waved away the many questions that popped up as she urged him to put him hand down.

“It’s alright, Julius,” Aika nodded permissively at Holly. “Come here, Holly.”

Holly slackened in her seat and phased through the dagger and restraints holding her in place. She turned to her attacker with a feral smile as he was caught off-guard by her movement. 

Then suddenly, he was slammed against the wall as his dagger clattered to the floor, his form pinned against the wall like a cross by an unknown force.

Holly walked up to her mother with an overly-pleased smile and leaned forward expectantly.

“Good job, Holly,” she praised with a laugh as she patted her head, subtly healing the little knick in her daughter’s neck. “You’ll make a brilliant operative one day.”

“Operative? I’m going to be the _Queen._ ”

Aika huffed. Her daughter wanted to be the Faerie Queen, a title earned by passing a series of rigorous tests, evaluations of intentions, and demonstration of significant power capable enough to protect all fae. It was one of the most difficult jobs in the world and she couldn’t be any prouder as a mother to see her daughter dreaming big and working hard.

“Woah! What kind of magic is that!?” Julius exclaimed, enthralled by what he had just witnessed. “You just passed through the knife and blanket! Is that some kind of evolved version of spatial magic?!”

“...yes?”

“Oh my god, that’s so cool! I’m Julius by the way!” he offered a hand for her to shake. “Nice to meet you!”

“Hello, Mr. Julius...Nice to meet you too,” she threw a baffled expression at Aika as she slowly shook his hand. “I’m Holly.”

Aika examined the hovering object inside Julius’ spell. He badgered Holly with questions while she threw concerned looks at their captive, who strained against the invisible force holding him in place. Aika paled when she realized what the assassin threw. It was a flat circular token with explosion runes inscribed onto them. Anything that touches the flat side would explode irreparably. If it touched a human being, it would be an instant kill.

The assassin threw that at Julius. He hurt Holly and Arthur. Her vision flashed red.

In a blink, Aika was on the other side of the room where she threw a solid punch across the man’s jaw. His head whipped to the side and spat blood as it dribbled down his chin.

_“What’s your name?”_

He grinned toothily, showing off his bloody teeth.

_“You’re already dead, Sarkany. We will all be dead.”_

She punched him again. This time his head lolled unsteadily, skirting the edge of unconsciousness. Julius tried to turn Holly away from the scene but she shrugged his hand off and shook her head. Her mom was usually far more composed but today was unusual. 

Holly sniffed and nearly gagged when her incredibly sensitive nose picked up the smell of whiskey and something musky coming from the man next to her and her mom. She scrutinized Julius and raised an eyebrow when she noticed a faint, blue, star tattoo on his forehead similar to the one her mom was sporting. She also noticed that he was this kingdom’s mage warrior, a Magic Knight, she faintly recalled.

_“Let’s start again. What’s your name?”_

_“Sven,”_ he rasped.

_“Sven. Why are we all going to die, Sven?”_

_“I hurt your daughter and her father,”_ he wheezed. _“I attempted to hurt your Greek friend over there,”_ he looked up at her with a crooked smile. _“You’re going to kill me and the moment I die, I’m taking everyone in this village down with me.”_

Aika’s heart stuttered at his words. There were no visible runes on him so she tore his tunic apart and stared at the bright, red runes carved into his chest. If he died, he was going to use the release of his mana to power an explosion big enough to wipe out the countryside. If she spared his life, she would have to make sure he didn’t kill himself. That wasn’t going to happen going by the crazed look in his eyes. 

Aika hovered her hand over his chest and tried to undo the carved runes but just as she predicted, he had mana resistance. She used her last potion on Julius and the potion wasn’t on the market yet.

“What’s wrong?” Julius padded over silently to her side.

“He is going to kill himself if we hold him captive and when he does, everything in a 2 kilometer radius is going to be destroyed by an explosion.”

She closed her eyes and concentrated. She had a bad feeling about this. She needed to make sure.

Aika sped up the time of the mana around her and strained her senses to pick up a sound, a vision or even a smell.

She coughed violently when the smell of smoke and burning flesh filled up her lungs and her ears rang faintly from an echo of a detonation.

“Aika, are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” she stared hard at Sven as she swallowed the lump in her throat. There was only one way that the explosion was inevitable. “Holly, can you open his mouth wide?”

Holly flicked her wrist and an invisible force pried Sven’s mouth open. Aika and Julius strained to look inside and their eyes widened when they noticed more runes. These ones were the same as the ones on his chest but they only needed blood to activate, blood which was already in his mouth.

He was dying anyway. His mana was slowly being sapped to power the runes and his chest was expanding outwards to build up an explosion.

“Holly, let go of him!” She needed to get him as far away from here as possible. 

“Wait, what? What are you doing?” Julius exclaimed as Aika picked up Sven from where he crumpled on the floor. She jogged to the front door and kicked it open.

“Julius, watch over Holly for me please!”

“Wait, I can contain the explosion!” He called out as he followed her outside. She whipped her head around.

“Are you sure?! This is forbidden magic. I don’t think it’s that easy.”

Julius nodded, his brows furrowed in determination.

“We need distance but I’m sure I could do it.”

“I’m going to throw him high. Could you contain him then?”

He nodded, his fingers clawed as he gathered his mana.

Aika put her arms under Sven’s armpits and held him tight and began spinning to gather momentum. She spun until she was blur then changed course, tilted sideways and flung him straight up as she accelerated his speed with a touch of her magic.

Julius shot his spell after Sven’s ragdoll form and it caught up to him when he broke through the clouds.

For a moment, his prone body stayed suspended inside the spell, and with a flash, he exploded.

From where Julius, Aika and Holly stood, they heard a faint bang and a small ball light up for a few seconds before it was silent.

Aika felt faint as everything caught up to her. She collapsed to her knees in relief and buried her face in her hands.

_“Oh my fucking god, we all nearly died.”_


	5. Knife To The Neck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of an assassination attempt; Meet Arthur; Everyone's simping for Julius except Holly(she aint buying his shit); There's a world organization or two; oop there's fae and some more magic lore; what??? is?? Julius??; magic paintings and shit, man; also more forbidden magic shtuff :)))

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very active on my tumblr so come yell at me there! I post memes for this fic and just thirst over julius in general so pleaaaase interact with me @simpingforthisonedeer  
> There's art and other stuff under #Julius & Aika and more stuff under #demons run or #demons run fic stuff so check that out ;)))  
> Be sure to block #spicy doe bc that's...why...you're reading this version instead of the spicy one LMAOOOO

“Mom!” Holly threw her arms around Aika and buried her face in her neck. She wrapped her arms and held her daughter tightly as her head spun.

 _“I’m so sorry,”_ she whispered, holding back tears, further exacerbating the growing headache. 

Julius kneeled next to the pair and laid a comforting hand on Aika’s head, unwilling to interrupt their moment.

“It’s okay, everyone’s fine,” Holly assured.

“Yes, but you had to—”

“It’s okay, I wasn’t actually scared. Remember what you told me? You told me to think logically if I ever feel scared and logically speaking, the moon is up tonight and dad would’ve been fine. The man needed me alive to leverage me so I would be fine too.”

“I think I would’ve felt better if you blamed me instead of growing up so quickly,” Aika grumbled.

Julius let out a laugh, drawing attention to himself. She untangled herself from Holly and scanned him for any injuries.

“Are you alright, Julius?”

He waved her off and rubbed his eyes. “Besides the impending headache from the monster of a report I would have to write, I’m fine,” He looked at them intently. “You all need a security detail if this really is a common occurrence.”

“Oh! That won’t work!” Holly piped up. “My dad and I don’t even live on this continent and mom’s always travelling or bothering Uncle Ray at work. It’s okay,” she gave him a thumbs up. “My mom can take care of herself. She’s really scary. My dad and her friends are too. That’s why you shouldn’t hold her hand. If anyone fin—”

“Holly!” Aika exclaimed in horror, her cheeks inflamed with embarrassment. She threw an apologetic look at Julius. “He’s a Magic Knight Captain. He can take care of himself.”

“Ohhhh. That’s why he smells so much,” she muttered to herself, nodding as if everything made sense.

“What!” Julius whipped his head around, trying to check himself.

“Holly, no!” Aika stifled her laughs as she tried to catch his attention.

“You don’t smell, Julius. My daughter has Magic Synesthesia. Please forgive her. She’s just trying to say you have a lot of mana.”

He let his jaw drop in awe. That was an incredibly rare and fascinating condition! People with Magic Synesthesia were incredibly sensitive to magic, detecting unique mana from incredibly long distances. In fact, the world’s most famous bounty hunters and trackers had some form of Magic Synesthesia.

“Wait, really?! Then what do I smell like?”

Aika was going to stop Holly before she said something offensive again but it was too late.

“You smell like a warm, jelly-filled pączki in the middle of a lightning storm. It’s a good smell. It’s cold and warm at the same time,” she sniffed and wrinkled her nose. “But it barely covers the whiskey smell.”

“Oh, that was what the sweet smell was,” Aika nodded to herself, not unlike her own daughter. She rather liked pączki… 

Holly narrowed her eyes at her mom. She has good magic sense with her nose too but she has to be _really_ close to smell something distinct like that. When did she get so close to him?

“WOW! That’s amazing, could you tell me—”

“I’m glad you lot are still alive.”

The trio turned towards the front of the house as a handsome, black-haired man with glittering, emerald eyes stepped into the moonlight as he rolled his bleeding shoulder with a groan. He tossed his braid behind him and raised his brows at Julius. 

“Did that handsome Magic Knight over there take that assassin out?”

Julius blushed furiously as this man, whom he was assuming was Arthur, winked salaciously at him.

“Listen here, you useless himbo.”

Holly stifled her giggles as her mom tore into her dad. It would get funnier when she realizes he was drunk too.

“You had _one job_ and that was to keep Holly safe _._ An assassin throws some iron at you and you fall like a bag of bricks? It’s a freaking miracle you’re still alive after all these years.”

Arthur shrugged and winced at the pain.

“Your concern is touching, but what can I say? The Gods don’t want me and the Devil isn’t done with me. I’ll live.”

Aika rolled her eyes as she stood up and Julius with her.

“But really, what happened to the assassin?”

Julius ran a hand through his hair as he spoke up.

“The assassin had explosive runes on his chest and inside of his mouth. He already activated the runes so Aika threw him high and I contained the explosion. It was the only way.”

“Woah, he has a nice voice too.”

Holly groaned internally. Not her dad too.

_“Dad.”_

“Sorry, that was rude.” Suddenly he was in front of Julius, bowing as he took his hand. “My name is Arthur. What’s yours?”

Aika slapped his hand away as Julius looked on in shock.

“Don’t answer that question, Julius,” she said seriously as she threw a warning look at Arthur’s way. He shouldn’t use his fae magic if he doesn’t want to bring unwanted attention to himself. With that sentence alone, she made sure Arthur knew Julius’ name indirectly and thwarted his plan to assume control of the unsuspecting man.

Holly groaned out loud this time. She didn’t understand what the weird tension between the three was, but it was disgusting. She shook her head as she walked back into the house. She didn’t want to be there if they got worse.

Arthur’s eyes flickered up to his forehead where the star lay on his forehead in interest. 

_Is this the Time mage she was looking for?_

His eyes slid down to Julius’ chest as he subtly reached out with his mana. He noticed that this man seemed to be hiding a significant portion of his mana and wore the Grey Deers crest.

_Oh, lord. Is he that Magic Knight Captain?_

“Holy shit, you’re that Captain no one knows the attribute about. Good thing that, considering the Pascere Syndicate went through so much effort to cover up Aika’s Time Magic,” he added.

“The Pascere Syndicate?” Julius frowned. He heard about them. “You mean the Assembly of Nations?” He knew he would have to attend at least one of their conventions after he gets appointed the Wizard King. It was a giant committee that sought to maintain peace, prevent magical wars and forbidden rituals on a global-scale that could destroy the world.

 _And wait, cover up Time Magic? How does he know that I have Time Magic?_

“Yeah, them. You’ve been doing a good job of covering up your Time magic so far,” he said, looking pointedly at his forehead. “but please try not to catch any unwanted attention from the international community,” Arthur laughed nervously. The last time that happened...Oh, he did not want to think about it. He didn’t particularly care if there was another Time Mage, especially since it looked like Julius kept his low-key, but people who would want to use it for themselves often took down many in their path to get it.

Julius nodded hesitantly at the unexpected advice.

“I’ll keep that in mind...”

“What are you doing here in the countryside anyways? Isn’t there a war going on?”

“He was just escorting me home,” Aika said as glared at Arthur. She slowly wrapped a possessive arm around Julius’ waist. He looked at her with a pleased grin and pulled her closer to his side.

Arthur’s mouth dropped into an “o” when he realized what they were actually here for and threw a knowing smirk at them. 

_Seems like the Time mages are getting along quite nicely…_

He laughed as he slapped Julius’ back jovially but immediately recoiled. He quickly covered that up as if he was rolling his shoulders at the expense of the sharp pain that shot through his body. He willed his beating heart to calm down as hysteria threatened to crawl up his buzzed brain.

_What the hell was that?_

“I’m so sorry, Julius,” Arthur stepped back with his arms raised. He nodded at Aika calmly, though his eyes were filled with no small amount of fear, hoping she would spot it. 

She just threw a grateful look at him and shared a smile with Julius. Arthur’s shoulders slackened an inch when he saw genuine affection in their eyes. That was surprising. But whatever it was, he needed to get Holly away from here. He needed to leave anyway due to the custody contract and someone will notice the assassin gone and will investigate. Whatever this Time mage was, he was trouble too. 

“I’ll take Holly home and bring her around tomorrow afternoon,” he declared with forced nonchalance. “Holly!” he called out. “Come on, dear! We’re leaving!”

“Wait, I need a statement from you two,” Julius stepped forward officiously, choosing to ignore his bizarre behavior for now. He had noticed how Arthur let go of him and the way his eyes shook in their sockets as he looked at Aika as if to warn her. He seemed scared of Julius all of a sudden, but whatever it was, he needed to get a word from them before they leave. Plenty of time to investigate later.

“Could you please explain how a foreign assassin got to Hage?”

Aika reached out and touched Arthur’s arm to heal it. He smiled tightly as he answered,

“Holly and I were exploring the continent—because it was our week off,” Arthur quickly explained when Aika opened her mouth to berate him again. “and we were in the Spade Kingdom touring your alma mater,” He motioned at Aika. “when the assassin, who had been tailing us the whole time, finally found an opportunity. We realized too late and were going to teleport away but he caught up to us as we ported here and there was a little scuffle,” Holly jogged back to her father’s side, unamused. “I got injured, Holly was restrained and held hostage for approximately an hour, then you two came along and you know the rest of the story,” he finished as he rushed at the end. He really needed to leave. He was getting antsy to get Julius away from Holly.

“Ah, thank you, Arthur!” Julius took his hand and Arthur suppressed a shudder at the wave of goosebumps and unnatural cold followed by warmth that settled over him.

Julius raised an eyebrow at the way he tensed and the distinctly different mana he was giving off.

_That’s very interesting..._

“It was really nice meeting you two,” He expressed sincerely.

“Of course,” Arthur said lowly, injecting false flirtatiousness into his tone. He needed to stay in character.

“Aika, can I speak with you for a moment before we go?” His hand twitched as he reached for Holly. He didn’t want to leave her but he needed to avoid suspicion. 

“Of course!” She turned to Julius and quickly pecked his cheek. Arthur’s anxiety shot up. “I’ll be right back Julius,” she said as he grinned sheepishly. Holly rolled her eyes at the display and crossed her arms across her chest.

Arthur squared his shoulders as Aika silently led them to a tree on the front yard. He needed to warn her.

She turned to him with a raised brow.

“Is everything alright?”

Arthur shot a cautious look at Julius. “No, it’s not. Your new boytoy isn’t human.”

She threw a sharp look at him. “First of all, don’t call him ‘my boytoy’ and second of all, what do you mean by that?”

“I mean that he doesn’t have a heart. His heartbeat is fake.”

“Oh, I knew that.”

_“What? ”_

Aika crossed her arms. “I had my fingers on his pulse. His heart was supposed to be beating quickly at that moment, but at the speed he was going, he seemed like he was having a heart attack,” she rolled her eyes. “Well, that’s obviously not what was happening."

Arthur shook as he stifled a smile. “Yeah, but that doesn’t change the fact that his mana is completely different from normal humans.”

She hummed thoughtfully. “Well, forbidden magic can make a human mana seem _inhuman._ He doesn’t have any weg,” her eyes widened. “But didn’t I say that the seal on my forehead could double as a seal for weg?”

“Forget about forbidden magic!” he hissed. “Okay, he’s not as straight-laced as he looks. Okay, whatever, but I _know_ how forbidden magic feels like on a person. This isn’t forbidden magic, it feels more _lighter,_ and it’s not elf magic either. What kind of magic allows you to not have a beating heart, _and_ feel light and dangerous?”

Aika’s cheek twitched. “Fine,” she conceded. “I’ll keep an eye on him. But I think you’re worrying about nothing. He’s had many opportunities to cause any harm but he hasn’t. He was actually really gentle and vulnerable with me. He is also a respected Magic Knight who is on his way to becoming Wizard King.”

“I know and it looks like he may have some rather large skeletons in his closet.”

“Arthur, we all do,” Aika sighed heavily. “Look, he is good. I can assure you that. You know what he wants to do when he is Wizard King? He wants to end classist discrimination in Clover Kingdom and he was genuine about it. Look, I’m surrounded by liars and I can smell one from a mile away. He hasn’t lied to me.”

“Yet.”

She growled in annoyance. “Are you worried about me or something?”

“Am I worried about the mother of my child? Yes, and I still stand by the fact that he doesn’t feel remotely human.”

“You’re not human either, idiot. I don’t care if he isn’t. I mean, as long as he isn’t conspiring anything malicious, I don’t have any problem with him being not-human and/or using forbidden magic,” she snorted. “I’d be a hypocrite if I did.”

“Okay, I’ll drop it for now,” Arthur shook his head. Maybe she’ll see some sense after she’s had her way with him. He smirked at her. 

“I guess you would be biased,” he quirked his eyebrow knowingly. “I see you eyeing him.”

“Oh, _please_ as if I’d let that cloud my judgement and besides,” she threw a long look at Julius on his knees as he talked to their daughter. “As soon as you two leave, that wouldn’t be the only thing I would’ve done by the end of the night.”

Arthur relaxed a bit. While his instincts screamed that Julius was hiding something about himself, it doesn't necessarily mean he’s hiding something heinous or harmful. If anything were to happen, he believed that she could take care of herself.

“Be careful, and if you two continue your little tête-à-tête and you’re still alive, let me join sometime,” he winked as he added playfully.

“Oh, come on. The last time we both got into the same bed, you came out at the end of it looking like you lost a fist fight.”

He stuck his tongue out childishly. “Too bad I’m into that.”

He dodged as she smacked his arm with an indulgent laugh.

* * *

Julius kneeled in front of Holly with a forbearing smile.

“I really like your mom,” he admitted plainly. She scoffed derisively, all manners to the wind.

“Did I do anything to offend you? If so, could I do anything to fix it?”

“All of them are like that,” she snarled bitterly as looked at her nails. “Your type only likes my mom because she’s pretty and nothing else,” Holly braced herself, ready to cut him down if he moved to attack her, but he only stayed silent. She looked up to see Julius looking at her mom by the tree with a smile that threatened to overtake his face.

“Yeah, she’s pretty,” he agreed as he tore her eyes from her to look at Holly. “And she’s kind of scary too. She has a mean hook,” he huffed as he looked at Aika from the corner of his eye. “But she’s super smart and really cool. She knows a lot about magic and I want to learn from her. I want to work with her and the time I spent with her so far has been... _freeing_ ,” he admitted shyly. “I want to know more about her and I want _us_ to get along because you are her daughter and she loves you a lot. One day, I hope she could even show me a sliver of that love,” Julius sighed deeply. “Could you please tell me what she likes or where she might want to go?” he looked at her pleadingly. “I’d love to take her on a date.”

Holly stared at him, eyes as wide as saucers. The lump in her throat made it hard for her to breath. No one’s ever talked about her mom like that to her face…

“Um,” she squeaked as tears gathered at the edge of her eyes. Holly looked up and blinked rapidly, willing them to go away. All of her mom’s past lovers have always avoided her because she wasn’t their daughter. No one’s really come up to her and told her that they sincerely liked her mom. They might have loved her but she didn’t know and she didn’t understand it anyway. But the way Julius looked away at her mom while Holly composed herself made her chest constrict.

She cleared her throat, bringing his attention back to her. He looked at her searchingly to make sure she was ‘okay.’

“Sh-she likes to stay in during winters with hot cocoa and blankets and just talk. She likes to listen to people talk about their day,” Holly breathed in deeply. If he was sincere, and if he would continue to look at her mom like that, then she could afford to help him a bit. “If you want to get her something, _don’t_. But if you really want to, make her something, like food or a bracelet or something like that. She likes personal things like that.”

“Thank you, I really appreciate that.”

They both turned their heads when Aika and Arthur burst out laughing. Jealousy shot through Julius when Arthur laid a hand on Aika’s shoulder.

“Say...How close are your mom and dad?”

Holly shrugged. “They’re best friends. There’s not much to say besides that,” she raised a brow at him. “But if you’re asking if they _like_ each other that way, I’d say ‘no.’”

Julius nodded, slightly relieved, and stood up as the grinning pair made their way to them.

“What are you two whispering about?”

“He was just keeping me entertained,” Holly quickly covered as Julius threw a grateful smile at her.

Aika and Arthur shared a disbelieving look. Their daughter was good at lying, but she wasn’t going to fool _them_ , her teachers.

“Thank you, Julius,” Arthur said, looking better than he did before. Aika walked and stood next to Julius as she laced her fingers with his. Holly quickly hugged her mom and took her father’s hand.

“We’ll take our leave,” he said quietly and nodded at the two with a wink. “Have fun.”

“Bye!” Holly chirped before they vanished from sight.

“They didn’t have to leave at my expense,” Julius began as he turned to Aika with a neutral smile. She waved him off and looped an arm with him as she led them back to her house.

“They didn’t leave because of you,” she tightened her hold on him. “They left because of the custody contract. Holly can only visit me during weekends, holidays and extenuating circumstances. After that, she has to leave.”

“Arthur is very nice for a fae,” Julius said nonchalantly. He caught Aika as she stumbled over her own feet.

“ _What?_ How did you—”

“He wanted your firstborn, apparently iron is deadly to him going by your words, you stopped me from saying my name directly, his mana was not human _and_ you have a pact with him; All clues point to him being fae. I wasn’t really sure because he recovered from the iron but your reaction confirms my suspicions,” he grinned in satisfaction as she stared at him in shock.

“I-Yeah, I mean you guessed right.” It made sense how quickly he connected the dots. Julius was going to be the Wizard King for a reason.

He leaned forward with an excited grin. “So your daughter is half-fae right? Does that mean she has two attributes? One is Spatial Magic, what is the other one? Can I ask Arthur questions about him being fae if I ever see him again?”

Aika stared at him for a moment, completely caught off guard by the cute expression on his face.

“Her other attribute is Sun Magic and y-yeah, you can,” she looked away with a blush. She really needed a sober-up potion. Julius tilted her face back with a finger and slotted his lips against Aika’s tenderly, much to her shock. She stared at his closed eyes and thick eyelashes and melted into the kiss and cradled his face. Their lips moved slowly and patiently against each other until they reluctantly pulled back to breathe.

Julius leaned his forehead against her’s. “Could I ask you a few more questions for my report,” he asked breathily against her lips.

“Of course,” Aika whispered back.

They linked hands with a shared smile and walked up the stony path to the house. He opened the door for her as she asked,

“Where did you learn to speak Greek?”

“My father and stepmother are children of Greek immigrants. I grew up speaking Greek and Latin,” he answered as he handed off his cloak and cape to her. That little information about his stepmother piqued her interest.

“Woah, that’s really cool!”

“Where did _you_ learn?”

“I was in Athens for a few months, picked up the language on the go.”

“Wow! You were in Greece?”

“I’ve been everywhere,” Aika answered with a proud smile as she hung the cape and cloak on the coat rack. “I’m going to go wash my feet. Could you please take out the sober-up potions from the cabinet left of the kitchen sink for us?”

Julius nodded as she took a turn down a hallway off to the side. He examined the living room more carefully. It was modestly decorated with a few bronze accents pieces and dark brown furniture, but the walls were decorated with landscape and abstract paintings by Aika’s father. Some were of a view he would expect to see outside a cabin in the middle of the woods or at the edge of the sea and some were chaotic depictions of fire, water, lightning and metal curling around each other, tightly linked and unwilling to let go.

He shook his head and strode into the kitchen as he went over the questions he was going to ask. As he reached for the cabinet where he assumed Aika kept her potions, he was hit with a wave of unnatural dread from the window above the kitchen sink. He strained his eyes to look outside in curiosity and extended his mana zone in the direction of the backyard. His dread increased when he detected recent activity of forbidden magic. It was like a parasite that crawled over scorched Earth and flowers which surprisingly thrived despite the oppressive mana. It was all Aika’s magic.

His chest tightened at the thought of her doing forbidden magic but Julius could feel it so vividly. She had been doing forbidden magic. He wondered how he couldn’t feel it on her…He took out the potion and swallowed it thickly as any warm feeling he had of her shriveled up and died. He blinked as his vision grew clearer and leaned heavily against the kitchen countertop. He had such high hopes. 

“Boo.”

Julius immediately pivoted on his heel, fingers pointed at Aika’s neck as they sparked with mana. She stared at him, fresh-faced as she cocked her head.

“You’re under arrest for the use of forbidden magic,” he growled as he glared at her. Her eyes lit up in understanding and smiled cryptically.

“That’s kind of hot,” she giggled as she cupped his cheek.

“Wh—” And before he could finish his sentence, he was slammed against the wall, his wrists crossed and pinned above his head. He forgot she was Time Mage too.

Aika breezily opened her potions cabinet and downed the sober-up potion. 

Julius strained against the invisible, hand-like force on his wrists to no avail. She flipped a dining table chair around with a flourish and leisurely sat on it as she crossed her legs, looking like the very image of grace as she adjusted her skirt.

“Does Master Raymond know you use forbidden magic?” He spat as he struggled to uncross his wrists. She quirked an eyebrow at him as she answered his question.

“Know?” she cocked her head at him. “He sanctions it.” Aika supressed a smile as Julius stilled in shock. “I’m sure you had questions about how I knew the forbidden runes on Sven’s body. A better question would be how _you,_ a Magic Knight Captain, knew.”

Julius stayed silent as they both stared at each other, wearing equally neutral expressions.

“I like to read,” he finally said.

“Oh no, I knew that already. The question is why _you_ would be reading about forbidden runes.”

“I could ask you the same,” Julius said, his expression icy and eyes that were dull to the point where they seemed black in the dim torchlight of the kitchen.

Aika raised her hands as she shrugged. “I’m an open book. I’ll tell you where I learned if you tell me.”

He jerked against the restraints one more time before he slackened in defeat. 

He sighed. “There’s a secret section of the Royal Library,” he growled, refusing to elaborate further.

“Oh, is that all?” Aika sighed in relief. She read everything in there already and it only had elementary books on forbidden subjects. “If that’s where you learned then that’s okay. It would be a problem if you were actually interested in forbidden magic and sought after it in other places,” Aika nodded as she crossed her arms. 

“I learned forbidden magic in the Spade Nation War College for four years since I was 16. That was almost twenty years ago,” she explained as she hugged herself. She smiled wickedly when Julius’ eyes strayed downwards to her chest.

“Did you know,” Aika began as his eyes flickered up to her’s with an embarrassed blush. “That using forbidden magic and having weg is a symbol of power in the rest of the world? It’s taboo on this continent only because someone opened the Qliphoth Tree over 600 years ago and let out a lot of demons into the world. The rest of the world actually still hates the Four Suits continent because of that,” she shook her head with a wry smile. “It’s no matter,” she leaned as if she was going to tell him a secret. 

“I’m not particularly a patriot or a nationalist—I’ve been around the world way too many times to be one—but serving the Wizard King was and is a pleasure. I do forbidden magic for the Wizard King. I keep my hands dirty so the Wizard King doesn’t have to—but that doesn’t mean Master Raymond’s hands are entirely clean,” she snorted as she said, “He _did_ choke the life out of an entire army with their own blood and drown another. Did you know that he’s known as The Leviathan around the world for that?”

“Just because Master Raymond sanctions it, doesn’t mean it’s legal. Using forbidden magic means losing your humanity.”

“Yeah, if you don’t use it carefully. There are safeguards against that but there are some rituals where you can’t avoid that. But if you mean losing your emotions, I mean it happens, again, if you’re not careful. And besides, it’s legal if you have a license, and guess what? I have a license. I’ve saved lives with forbidden magic and if you try to have it revoked, you will be hard-pressed by many factions ready to defend me.”

Julius sighed and closed his eyes in relief. In order to be approved for a license, it takes years of thorough background checks and psychiatric evaluations. If she’s been approved, then she can be trusted. “You could’ve just said that. Please let me go. I won’t attack you.”

She giggled as she shook her head. “Sorry, I just felt like monologuing like a villain,” she said as she winked.

Julius laughed as he looked up at his restraints. “Could you please let me go?”

“Sur—”

“CAPTAIN!”

They both jumped as a screen materialized in front of Julius’ face.

“What-Where have you been? The meeting was over _hours_ ago! Why are your hands above your head like that?!”

“Marx! Ah, I am just stretching my arms,” he laughed nervously. Aika let go of her hold on him with a silent laugh. She couldn’t see who this Marx character was but she spared Julius the indignity of someone witnessing him being tied up like that.

Julius dropped his arms and rolled his shoulders as he smiled wide.

“I’m kind of busy right now, Marx. I have no doubt that the squad is up right now partying their Friday night. Well, tell them to party harder because tonight is that last night before we begin preparing for the final battle! By this time Saturday, we either win or lose the war.”

“The final battle? Are you sure, sir?”

“Yes, I am, Marx. Join your friends or just relax because tomorrow, we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

“Yes, sir...Aren’t you coming back to the base? You could look at Magic later, sir…”

“I’ll be there,” he smiled kindly. “but don’t expect me.”

“You could look at magic later! You have to inform the squad yourself now! A final battle? I can’t even begin to imagine what we need to start preparing!”

Julius raised his hands as he cringed from his berating.

“I’ll be there soon as soon as I can!”

“Alright, you better be!”

The screen fizzled out and Julius pressed a hand to his chest and exhaled in relief. Aika found it strange, for a passing moment, that he was still making gestures as if he had a heart that could beat.

“Oh, that was nearly embarrassing,” Julius huffed as he leaned his head back against the wall. 

“You should go, you know.”

He gasped dramatically and pouted as he strode to where she sat. Julius pulled her up to her feet as he brushed his lips against hers. 

“You want to get rid of me already?” Aika brought her hands up to his face with an amused twitch of her lips and pecked at the little dimple at the corner of his mouth.

“No, you are absolutely adorable. How could I?”

He shook his head with an embarrassed grin and looked around and his jaw dropped at the framed painting that covered most of the kitchen’s West wall. It was gigantic but he didn’t notice it because his attention was on her.

“Holy—That’s amazing! Did your father paint that?”

Julius quickly let go of her and moved closer to the painting to examine it closely. Aika groaned internally at the loss of his presence but turned her attention to the painting nonetheless.

It was a small, raven-haired boy caught mid-dance as the rain and wind swept his hair and clothes as lightning curled around him. The stormy sky in the background was lit with stray lightning and some even seemed to strike the ground around him. Julius couldn’t help but gape at the magic depicted so delicately and with such detail. He could almost _feel_ the mana through the canvas.

Aika studied the little boy’s face with a sad smile as she stood next to him.

“Yeah, he did. We caught my brother summoning storms again when he was 10 and gained full control of his magic. My father found the scene very picturesque so he spent months painting and perfecting it. ” 

Julius stared, starry-eyed as he touched the lightning on the boy’s cheek.

“He was summoning storms at 10? He must be a really strong mage now! Where’s your brother now? Why have I never heard of such a strong lightning mage in the Magic Knights? Didn’t you say he wanted to be Wizard King?”

“Oh, my brother’s in the backyard right now,” she said casually as she willed her face to stay neutral.

“In the backyard?” he craned his head to look out the window. “At this time? What’s he doing?”

“Staying dead.”

Julius clamped one hand over his mouth to stop an inappropriate guffaw from bursting out. He let his hand fall and pursed his lips as Aika continued.

“The painting is called ‘The Symphony of the Lightning God,’” she continued as she motioned at the painting with a giggle.

“I-I see.” A snort escaped him. “I’m so sorry. That was so rude of me.”

She sniggered. “No, it’s perfectly fine. My brother told me to make that joke.”

“He told you? When did he die?”

Aika paused. “Over 23 years ago...He was thirteen and I was sixteen…”

Julius’s face grew somber as he wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulder.

“I’m sorry...I’m sure you miss him…”

She snorted. “No, I don’t. I saw his dumbass yesterday. What do you think the forbidden magic in the backyard was?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah man, what'd you think the forbidden magic was for? 🙄  
> my tumblr is @simpingforthisonedeer !!


	6. Lips to the Pulse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aika really forgot she isn't supposed to fall in love and get attached but does exactly that and breaks our favourite himbo's heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [btw this is a picture I drew for this chapter!](https://simpingforthisonedeer.tumblr.com/post/635460686901854208/friendly-reminder-that-this-exists)  
> If you have any questions, please comment or send me an ask on my tumblr @simpingforthisonedeer ! im pretty active there so i would really appreciate if you interact🥺👉👈  
> If you are a mutual of mine that reads this fic, it's on sight for you hoes if you don't comment even a rating😤 like even a -10/10 is appreciated😤

He looked down at her, confused. “I communed with him through a portal. It’s a spell that opens a window into the afterworld and we both gossiped over tea,” Aika observed carefully as Julius grew more interested. “I even told him about you! He was stoked about another Time Mage.”

“What?” Julius shook his head and gathered his wits.

“Wait, so you can commune with the dead? I mean yes, you can but it’s a forbidden spell. You have no weg though?” His eyes lit up with a revelation. “Could Time Magic be considered otherworldly magic? Because that is the only way you can avoid getting weg.”

“That’s what I thought too,” Aika agreed as she led him to the living room. “but I still get weg but I don’t need a talisman or a seal to conceal it. Time is a concept that otherworldly realms also have except the realm of the Gods, so I would assume it could be considered otherworldly.”

“But just because it exists in other realms doesn’t mean it’s considered otherworldly. Plants exist in other realms, but they’re not otherworldly. Do we know what was the first realm ever created?”

Aika let out a content sigh as Julius took off his boots as he sat next to her on the sofa.

she thought wryly as she fetched the fluffy blanket on the armchair and threw it over their laps as they planted their feet on the coffee table in front of them.

“‘The realm of the Devils was the first to be created in order to obscure the light of Gods and bring about reality.’ It’s one of _the_ first things you learn about otherworldly magic,” she explained as she moved closer to his side.

“Well, time would’ve existed first in the Devil’s realm then…You think I could use weg magic too if Time Magic really is otherworldly?”

“Julius! Don’t even think about it! Trying to do weg magic without a teacher is quite dangerous.”

“Hehe, I got a teacher right here,” he quipped as he shifted around feet in a futile attempt to move the blanket comfortably under his feet. Aika jumped when his cold feet touched her ankle. 

“Woah, didn’t you _just_ take your feet out of your boots?”

He rubbed the back of his head with an embarrassed smile.

“Haha, yeah. I’m always cold.”

“Well, it explains why you wear so many layers,” she grumbled as she shifted the blanket to cover his feet. She lit up when an idea struck her. 

“Here,” she spread her arms. “I’m warmer.”

Julius stared at her, his mouth open in small “O” before his eyes crinkled at the corners and he let out an amused laugh.

Aika knew she was done for when her heart danced to the sound of his laughter. She controlled her breathing and prayed that he heard nothing as he burrowed into her arms. He wrapped his arms around her waist and threw his legs over her thighs and she instinctively hugged him closer and huffed at how tactile he was.

“Thank you!” He looked up at Aika through his lashes, making her catch her breath. “Would you still teach me how to do weg magic?” He asked softly.

She melted under his gaze and pressed her cheek to his hair.

“Why do you want to learn? Do you want to talk to someone in the After?” Then she remembered. “Do you want to talk to your mother?”

Julius stiffened in her arms and she immediately backtracked “Sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“Yes…” He admitted hesitantly. “She vanished the night I was born…” 

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about. My stepmother, my mom, raised me with love and I’m grateful for her, but I’m just curious about my real mother. She vanished the night I was born. I just sometimes wonder who she was, what happened to her…” His father had always cursed his mother’s name and barely looked at Julius because of how much he reminded him of her. It was a good thing his stepmother came along and raised him as if he were her own.

He yawned and nuzzled against her collarbone. She shivered at the tender gesture and pressed a kiss to his hairline as he giggled.

“I guess you would be,” Aika said understandingly. “I was curious about my own mother too.” Julius looked up at her in interest. “I was adopted. The men who found me, well, they found me next to my mother’s body.”

He winced in sympathy and hugged her tightly.

“It’s alright. I didn’t know her but I tried contacting her in the After but...She kept blocking the connection for some reason…” Aika looked down at him as she smoothed his hair. 

Once upon a time, that rejection hurt, but she’s over it now. The men who found Aika found her freshly born, barely cleaned and the umbilical cord still uncut, lying in a misshapen basket next to her mother’s cooling body, whose throat was slit with a knife that was loosely held in the corpse’s hand. Something obviously happened to her and she didn’t want to talk.

“I can help contact your mother if she’s truly dead. You don’t have to do forbidden rituals,” she promised as she chased the dark thoughts away. While she didn’t remember anything about it, the story that they told her still haunted her.

Julius sat up as he pulled away and looked at her intently. His face was neutral but his eyes were searching. Aika grew nervous with the long silence.

Finally his eyes settled on her hairline as he asked, “Can you show me your weg?” A sharp sort of rejection zapped through her when he ignored her offer. She turned away, miffed. Of course she wasn’t going to show him her weg. Bringing it out meant having negative emotions at the forefront of her mind.

“That’s a very personal thing, Julius,” she grumbled to alleviate the seriousness welling up in her. He smiled with a huff. It would be a long while before they gained each other’s trust and Julius was a patient man. While it would be amazing to see what weg looks like first-hand, she wasn’t comfortable with it and that was okay. He can wait.

“There is another reason why I can’t teach you weg magic,” she began as she leaned on the armrest. “To use weg magic, you often need to channel and control your negative emotions to make it work, unfortunately. And the thing is,” Aika turned to him with a dark look. “I don’t sense much from you,” she paused “except maybe frustration.”

Julius resisted the urge to sigh. There was no need for them to get so somber but it can’t be helped in the direction this conversation was going. He had asked her a lot of questions and made her reveal a lot about herself, but he said next to nothing about himself. That had to change if he needed her to trust him.

“You sensed right,” Julius confessed. “I am frustrated, but not in the way you think I am,” he stared melancholically at the faded crescent shaped scars in the palm of his hand. “I am frustrated by the way the elite think of other people, the way they get to control this kingdom to fit their selfish needs, the way they lack any compassion for people who are suffering. It may not seem personal but I’ve made it my duty to correct this kind of thinking.”

“See, that’s honorable and only frustration. Is there a memory or anything driving it? Like a traumatic event?”

Julius remembered Zara and his shining smile and how he was cut down by his own squadmates out of jealousy. He looked at his hand with a shaky breath.

“Yes.”

“Okay...Are you frustrated to the point of anger?”

“Yes.”

“Angry enough to kill?”

He remembered thanking the rain for hiding his tears as he laid the flowers over Zara’s grave. He remembered holding back from disintegrating the Purple Orca Knights where they stood as they celebrated Zara’s death. He thought of Zora, Zara’s son, and how bitter he turned out.

Julius turned to her with deadened eyes.

“Yes.”

Aika slackened as she sighed.

“That’s what I was afraid of,” she admitted as she cupped his cheek. “You’re a beautiful human being,” she whispered as she brushed his lashes with her thumb. He flushed under her gaze. “Killing is part of your job but it’s not driven by blind rage. Even righteous anger can be exploited by this magic. Weg will only encourage these negative emotions to fester and grow. I will not allow that to happen to someone I lo—”

She paused and desperately flipped through her mental dictionary. She hated that word.

“Someone I like.” There. That was better. She gave herself a mental pat on the back. While that was a good save, she quickly needed to change the subject or this was going to get awkward _real_ fast. 

“But I will help you in any way you need. You want a Clover Kingdom with no discrimination? I’ve got many ideas!” She pulled a small notebook and fountain pen out of nowhere. It might’ve been a little extra but too late. “Let’s start with education, what is taught in etiquette for noble children, and the rest of the kingdom, what kind of attitudes we are encouraging. Then we’ll move on to deliberate economic oppression and think about policy changes. Let’s see how we can convince people in power to be more empathetic and just. A lot of things can change if we change the way this country thinks. I heard the Kira prodigy was going to become the new chairman soon. I think we can start there...”

Julius parted his lips in shock as he stared at her with dazzled eyes. Aika continued listing off ideas as she scribbled them in her notebook, completely unaware of the awestruck man next to her. 

He tackled her into a hug and wrapped himself around her again and moved her arm around his shoulder, encouraging her to hold him close. Julius didn’t know how to explain how grateful he was so he chose to show it instead.

Her book and pen slipped out of her hand as she hugged him back. Since Aika was already leaning on the armrest, he turned her completely to the side so he could lay half on top of her. 

Julius worried for a moment that he was being too forward but she wound her fingers through his hair and allowed him to rest his head on top of her pillowy chest. Aika readily wrapped her legs around his torso as she sighed contentedly.

“Thank you,” he whispered at last. “No one believes that this kingdom could change.”

Aika resisted the urge to snort. “Any state can change with a revolution.” He looked up at her mischievously. She brushed his cheek with the back of her hand with a barely suppressed smile. “Your not-so-little dream is a revolution and you’re lucky I can’t resist one.”

They grinned at each other before making themselves comfortable again. Julius reveled in the warmth of her embrace and shivered pleasantly when she wrapped the blanket around his shoulders. She gently began massaging his head and he felt like melting. 

A grin spread across his face when he realized that for the first time in his life, he was excited to know that someone was ready to accept him, whether it was his touch, ideas, or his childish nature, and someone who was ready to be a part of a bloodless revolution.

Julius turned his head and rested his chin lightly against her breastbone. Aika was already looking down at him with an affectionate look and he smiled back.

“Are you actually going to help me change this kingdom?”

“Of course. Why would I lie about such a thing?”

“I’m just making sure.”

He buried his face in her chest with a giddy smile.

“You’re a beautiful human being too.”

She scoffed lightly.

“Every part of that sentence is highly debatable.”

He giggled as he crawled up to her eye level. “No, I mean it,” he pressed a kiss to her forehead. “You are _stunning._ ”

Aika blushed fiercely.

“No, I’m not!”

“ _And_ a human being too,” he continued as he peppered her face with kisses. “Absolutely kind, ferocious, wickedly smart.”

She slid down the armrest as she resisted the urge to hide her face.

“Stop it…” 

Julius pried her hands away from her face and pressed a quick kiss on her nose and promptly collapsed on top of her.

Aika let out an “oomph” as he burrowed into her arms again.

“Should we move to the bed?” she asked with a laugh. “It’s much more comfortable.” They had quite an eventful day after all. 

Julius agreed and the two made their way to the bedroom upstairs to settle in for the night as they chatted quietly.

Aika handed him a pale green nightshirt and fleece pants to wear and went to go freshen up in the bathroom. He quickly put them on and jumped underneath the covers and shivered. Despite the normal temperature in the room, Julius was always cold, much to his dismay, but it was quite nice to bury himself in blankets and keep a comfortable temperature. 

He was staring pensively at the sheets when Aika walked out. She wore a shirt and comfortable shorts and had her arms behind her back as if she was hiding something.

When he looked at her curiously, she revealed a pair of fluffy socks with a huge smile and waved them at him.

“Ta-da!”

Julius sat up with a chuckle. That was quite thoughtful of her.

“Are those for me?”

“Yes,” she sidled up to him. “I _could_ keep your feet warm for you, but I wanted to make sure you were comfortable.”

“That’s...very nice of you.” She was one of the few people who wasn’t intimidated by him and spoke so frankly with him. Being with someone just as himself felt so new and interesting. He gave her one of his bright smiles. “Thank you.”

Aika fought off a blush and busied herself by putting the socks on for him. He pulled her up for a hug and held her close. She wrapped both her arms around his neck and fell back onto the bed. His touch seemed so natural so it was easy to let him snuggle up to her as he pleased. This was strange to her because she had never let someone so close to her this soon.

She still felt like she was forgetting something.

Julius pressed little kisses on her cheeks and forehead and settled his head on her shoulder with a big yawn.

“Goodnight, Aika,” Julius murmured.

“Goodnight, Julius,” she whispered back and pressed a kiss to his hair.

She stared up at the ceiling for a moment before she understood that she wasn’t going to fall asleep tonight either. She sighed heavily into Julius’ hair.

Using forbidden magic had cost Aika a part of her humanity: the part that sleeps. She needed to be incredibly tired or sedated with horse tranquilizers to be put to sleep. There was simply no other way. 

In the beginning, it was jarring to not be able to sleep and a little harsh on her eyes for being open so long. When she tried sleeping again, she would be constantly plagued by inescapable visions of the future, the far-off future, like visions of a dark tree and the world being overrun by darkness, and it all starts in this kingdom. 

Aika was grateful she couldn’t see her immediate future unless she concentrated but visions of worlds ending and dead family weren’t good for her mental health either. 

She preferred to focus on the upsides like more time available for her to get her paperwork done and focus on things she enjoyed doing during the day or even travel and check in on her departments as she did.

Working for one of only four international companies makes Aika a pretty busy woman so she was grateful for the extra time. The company began as a means to establish a global spy and information network but it quickly escalated into an operation that dipped its toes into nearly every industry. She was particularly fond of the R&D and Education & Career development departments and paid very close attention to them. In fact, she had to approve a big budget change for a major building project from R&D. Something about finally figuring out how to use a counterweight to construct tall buildings and be able to withstand winds.

She eyed her backpack which rested on the desk against the wall on her side. It had all the papers that she needed to look over and sign. The paper explaining the details was rather long, so if she could finish going over it by the end of the night, that would be perfect.

Aika _could_ use Mana Zone to extend the range of her Mana Hands spell to get that backpack but she could wake Julius up. She checked to make sure he was asleep and he was, quietly snoring away with a little smile on his face. 

She envied people who could sleep with a smile on their faces.

And just as she was about to reach for her bag, Julius shifted in her arms and looked up groggily.

“Wha—” He looked warily at the arm reaching out. “Go to sleep,” he sighed as he made himself comfortable again. “Let’s go on a date sometime. I’ll make a really good sandwich,” murmured sleepily before growing still again. 

_What?_ _A date?_

His words felt like she had been dunked with a bucket of ice water. That’s what she was forgetting. 

Aika finally realized what she did, and more importantly what her drunk-self said. She really let him believe this was something romantic, didn’t she? Sure, she wished she could date, but in the end, she would screw it all up. All her past lovers had been amazing people, honorable people, but in the end, they’ve all just hated her. The aura of forbidden magic around just put them off. In fact, people closest to her, her family and friends, couldn’t spend too much time around her without their behaviour taking a turn for the worse. 

It was one of the reasons why Holly couldn’t spend too much time with her. It’s the curse of using forbidden magic so much, for so long. Her aura changes good people to turn into someone they are not. The loneliness must be really catching up to her because she forgot herself for a moment and let him in. If she hung around him for another week or two, he would go from being this sweet, adorable man to being an utter asshole to her and everyone around him.

She can’t do this.

Aika looked down at his messy, blond hair and listened to him breathe. He tilted his head back, eyes still closed and a small smile spread across his face.

Her mind went blank. Her heart beat harder in her chest. Butterflies she thought had died years ago had suddenly roared back to life. 

Her head hurt. She felt like crying.

She let herself be vulnerable too. She let herself fall for him, even if it’s just a little bit. She told herself to breathe. 

_It’s someone you barely know._

But Aika knew damn well that some strangers have affected her life a lot in the first few moments she had met them. She looked at him again. Was he one of them?

She craved the intimacy, but in the end it was all ruined because of her stupid decison to study and master forbidden magic. Of course it was very useful and empowering, putting her at the top of the chain, but at what cost?

Aika simply couldn’t be around another person nearly 24/7 like she would be if she was in a serious relationship. She let out a heavy sigh and rubbed her eyes. It’s just a crush. It doesn’t matter.

She gently slipped his arms off of her and gave him a pillow as a substitute. He snuggled into it with another one of his adorable smiles, causing Aika’s breath to hitch. She gripped the sheets as she looked away and emptied her head. 

She had a lot of work to do.

* * *

Aika hummed tunelessly as she carefully pulled out the sfougato, a greek-style quiche-like omelette, from the oven. She finished reading the report from last night, washed Julius’ clothes, fixed the stone tablet protecting this house, destroyed the explosive token hovering in the living room, sent out her letters and even finished working out. 

She smiled at the night well-spent, but her mood was quickly clouded over by the fact that she had to turn Julius down. Not only that, but she also had to somehow salvage it to resemble some form of professionalism. 

If Aika was being honest, she liked Julius a lot. He was incredibly handsome, smart, strong and a Time Mage to boot. His most attractive traits were his kind eyes, his easy smile and most importantly, his willingness to be vulnerable. That sort of purity drew Aika in like a moth to a flame. She wasn’t kind, and she certainly didn’t smile often, but it was easy to be like that around him. Her guard did fly up once or twice but she wasn’t _as_ high strung around him. She felt oddly safe.

She cut the quiche into slices and wiped her hands on her apron. She turned around and looked at the garden out her window. The rising sun felt warm and comforting on her skin, gently soothing the lump in her throat. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, soaking in the mana she could sense in the sun’s rays, mana that favored her because she raised a daughter born from its light. It was mornings like these that made her understand why her daughter worshipped the sun.

The sound of feet quickly bounding down the stairs broke her concentration. She turned around expectantly but she was quickly tackled by a hug before she could get a clear look at the man who had once again been plaguing her thoughts all night.

“Good morning, Aika,” he whispered into her hair as she reluctantly wrapped her arms around him.

“Morning, Julius.”

He pulled back and grinned down at her but she stared through him, eyes blank, knowing that once she truly processes the man she is talking to, her words would leave her and she wouldn’t be able to do what she needs to do.

And then he caught her lips with his, and with unprecedented passion that stole the breath from her lungs. Aika barely reciprocated, because just as quickly as he kissed her, he stopped. She licked her lips and tasted the faint coolness of mint. He was considerate enough to not kiss her with his morning breath… 

“I feel well-rested despite only sleeping four hours,” he murmured as Aika blinked quickly, fending off the unexpected emotions that welled up within her.

“I used a spell of mine to give you extra time to sleep. Here,” she offered him a plate of the sfougato. It was a peace offering for what was coming really. “I hope you like it. I’ll grate some more feta on it if you want.”

“Wait,” Julius looked at his plate in shock. “Is this sfougato?”

Aika hummed affirmative as she looked away. She couldn’t bear to look at him in the face. She knew that once she did, her resolve would fall.

He cupped her cheek with one hand and kissed her again, this time much more sweetly.

“Thank you! My mother used to make them for me almost every morning!” He furrowed his brows when she stayed quiet. “Is everything alright? You’re so quiet.”

“I’m fine!” Aika assured him quickly. “I’m just,” she clenched her fists. “Quiet in the morning.”

“Oh, that’s alright then.” He pressed a kiss to her cheek and moved to sit at the table. “Have you eaten yet?”

She turned and gripped the edge of the sink. Even his voice distressed her.

“Ah, no,” Aika answered nonchalantly. She could explain as they ate. She shrugged her apron off and turned around but she froze at the sight.

Julius cocked his head at her with a questioning look as he leaned on his hands. His face was half-illuminated by the morning sun, his violet eyes glittered like diamonds and his hair shone gold, casting an angelic halo.

_He looked beautiful._

“Hey,” his expression grew worried and he set his plate down. “You are definitely not okay.” Julius quickly walked around the table and took her hands in his and wiped a stray tear. She blinked. She didn’t know she was crying. Usually, she would’ve been so embarrassed to cry in front of people, but why is she letting her guard down in front of him? “What’s wrong, Aika?”

His face was too close. She could clearly count the lashes framing his alarmed eyes. 

“Nothing,” she said quickly as she wiped her face. “Nothing’s wrong.” She sat down in the nearest chair and sighed. Julius leaned against the table and waited patiently. He tucked a long strand of her dark hair behind her ear as she spoke.

“I don’t think we should keep doing this.”

His hand fell. What? He must’ve misheard her.

“This would be unprofessional in the long-run.”

“But last night you said—”

“Last night, I was drunk,” Aika gritted out. Julius crossed his arms.

“I’m talking about after, Aika. What about the talk of revolution? What about after?” His face hardened slightly. “Was it all just a lie?”

“What?!” she barely held back her shock. She _never_ lied to him last night. “No!”

Julius’ sighed. His aura usually helped people to open up quicker unless they _really_ don’t want to tell him. He took her hands again, kneeled down in front of her and rubbed slow circles with his thumb.

“Then please tell me why.”

Aika still refused to look him in the eye. This whole thing felt strange.

“I will be your associate and it would be unprofessional. I also have a daughter and I don’t know if you’re okay with that.” She was giving him bullshit reasons at this point because he really didn’t need to know her true reasons. He didn’t need to know how lonely she was. “I have an incredibly negative reputation on the international stage that would damage any prospects for you to network with helpful people if you and I are closely associated. You are a public figure and _your_ reputation wouldn’t benefit from associating with a forbidden magic user and a peasant.”

Julius gulped thickly. He really didn’t care about those. He didn’t mind at all but Aika seemed so intent on pushing him away.

“Aika, please, I don’t care.”

“Well, you should! You should think about the long-term!”

His voice took a panicked tone. He thought this was going well but something’s wrong. This _was_ him being selfish. He didn’t want to be lonely anymore. He was guaranteed to become Wizard King so she wouldn’t be a distraction. He was _so_ excited for someone like her to be at his side.

“I _am_ thinking about the long-term and I absolutely do not care,” He put his hands together. “Please, I’m begging you—”

“Stop,” Aika growled “Don’t.”

Julius slackened at the dark look on her face.

“What?”

“Stand up.” He froze, unsure of her command. “Did I stutter?” He quickly scrambled to his feet and took a step back as she stood up.

“First thing’s first,” Aika crossed her arms as her face grew stern. “don’t ever beg unless you are in the bedroom.” A blush raced across his cheeks. “Second, you barely know me. Third, there’s a war, more importantly, the finale, so please forget about this. I have to go inspect the outposts at the southern borders today before the paperwork from my main job comes pouring in. I advise you to think about your own work as well,” she took a deep breath. “You deserve better than this,” she motioned at herself. Aika desperately held the tears at bay as her mind screamed, 

_You’re cursed! No one can love you anymore! And it’s all your fault!_

“You are going to be the king of an entire kingdom. I promise to serve you to the best of my abilities. You’re going to need all the help you can get, but I can’t be your partner,” she hugged herself and looked away from his heartbroken face. Her words kept twisting a dagger in his heart. It was better to change the subject. “As I said, I’m not particularly a patriot but this continent, specifically Clover Kingdom, has been heading towards dark times. As a Time Mage, you can feel it too, right?” He gave her a nearly imperceptible nod though his eyes were still glassy. “You’re going to have to lead this country safely through those times, and out of respect for the country that had raised me, I will help you too.”

Julius closed his eyes and took a moment to compose himself. He wanted to run, his head hurt, he wanted to scream in frustration. 

“I understand your reasons and they are valid,” he resisted the urge to clench his fists. “And thank you. I’ll appreciate the help. I have also sensed a dark future for this kingdom and...having a second opinion on my hunch would be nice...I—” He rubbed his eyes with the balls of his palms. He looked up and raked a hand through his hair, then looked down at her, his expression masked with a gentle smile. Even looking at her felt like torture to him, how could they ever collaborate on anything? She had given him such great hope, and then she dashed it all. “I had a lovely time.”

Aika smiled back hesitantly, though her nails dug into her arm.

“I did too...Your clothes are washed and folded on the vanity in my bedroom,” she mumbled. He noiselessly teleported away and he was instantly back, fully dressed. She opened her mouth to ask _how?_ But snapped it shut when she remembered that she wasn’t the only Time mage around anymore. He looked regal and handsome, put-together like a leader as he adjusted his collar. But his carefully neutral expression barely hid the hurt glimmering in his eyes. He was still a man too, a man whom Aika had deeply hurt with her unexpected rejection.

She moved as quickly as he did and packed the slice of sfougato in a box.

“It’s for you.”

“Thank you.”

Aika nearly jumped when her fingers brushed with his. They were soft and cool to touch. For a moment, she wanted to reach out and hold his hand, cradle his face and watch him lean into her touch like he did last night.

“May I ask you one favor?”

Her lavender eyes flickered up to his violet ones when he spoke.

“Yes?”

He squared his shoulders and looked at her solemnly.

“May I have one final kiss?”

Her heart leapt to her throat as she stared at him in shock. Was that a good idea? She was struggling to push him away and this would not help her. But, it was too late because her hand was already reaching for his face.

Aika cupped his cheek and his hand covered hers with a deep sigh. Julius let her touch be burned into his memory. She stood closer to him and tugged him down. As their noses brushed against each other and when his yearning gaze met hers, her guard fell and she gave in.

Her lips crashed with his with a desperation she vowed to never stoop to, but here she was, her walls being struck down one-by-one with each passing second, consumed by his frenzied kisses. Julius wound one hand into her hair and another around her waist pulling her tight as he desperately prayed that she’ll change her mind.

Julius pulled back so they could catch their breaths and pressed his forehead against hers as he waited for a response.

“Julius…” Aika whispered.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry.”

His arms tightened around her momentarily and then he let go. As she opened her eyes, the last thing she saw were tears that teetered on the edge of his lashes before he vanished, gone like he was never there.

Her hand reached out as if to catch him but it was too late. The moment he left, Aika could distinctly feel the hollowness in her chest, like something was missing. Though he was cold, the kitchen felt colder without him.

She stood frozen in her spot and lightly touched her chest when the regret set in. She replayed his smile, his dazzled eyes, the way his soft hair threaded between her fingers— 

“Miss Aika!” A familiar voice broke jarringly through the misery that was clouding her mind.

Was that Jayce?

“We can see you in the kitchen, Miss!” Ellie exclaimed as she knocked on the door to the backyard. Her maid was here too…

Aika quickly changed gears, unconvincingly telling herself that everything from last night to a few seconds ago was just a fever dream, and threw on a pleasant smile before opening the door.

Jayce waved an envelope in front of her face with a boyish grin, too bright and awake for 6 A.M. Ellie and Evan on the other hand, look like they’ve been through it.

“Mister Arthur asked me to give this to you first thing in the morning!” Jayce explained as he swaggered in, gravitating towards the pan of sfougato. Aika plucked the envelope out of his hand as she took measured breaths to ease the tremors in her hands. 

“It was weird that he came to the headquarters so late but he said it was urgent,” he explained.

“Good morning, ma’am,” Evan greeted with a slow bow of his head and Ellie gave her a simple hug, too tired to even speak.

“Good morning to you too, kids,” Aika looked between them suspiciously “but do all three of you need to be here to deliver an envelope?”

“We came here for breakfast,” Ellie said bluntly as all three of them sat down at the table. “The chefs at the headquarters are too busy because Master Raymond is stress-eating again.”

“Oh, alright,” Aika sighed as she pressed a hand to her forehead. “You three can join me,” she said as she stared at the wax seal. It was the official Pascere Syndicate logo. She rolled her eyes. It was probably information or an assignment, but going by the thin envelope, it was probably an assignment.

“Save me a slice,” she warned as she turned away to read the letter.

Her eyes skimmed through the obnoxiously elitist greetings that Arthur loved to write “ironically” and she came to find that yes, it was an information-gathering and networking assignment as her side-job as a Special Envoy to the Syndicate, and it was on— 

The threesome jumped in alarm when the letter in Aika’s hand exploded into flames. They quickly surrounded her in concern as Evan stamped the fire out but froze when they noticed the dangerously blank look on her face.

Aika controlled her magic, lest she suffocated her associates. She had unfortunately set the letter on fire before she could read the clear details of her assignment, so she would have to go ask Arthur for the details herself. While she was at it, she might as well set him on fire too.

The subject of her assignment was Heir Presumptive to the Wizard King of Clover, Julius Novachrono...The last person Aika wanted to see right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter, depending on the length, it will for sure include a brief scene or two from the final battle and Julius' coronation, the aftermath and a sneaky assassination attempt, this time, for Julius ;)


	7. Silver

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw: non-graphic suicide attempt  
> The final battle with the diamond kingdom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- I like to write bit more for the side characters because everyone's the main character of their story but they are relevant to the plot trust me ;)  
> \- Be sure to check the notes at the end there's important info there<3

Aika danced between spells aimed at visible enemies as she strolled towards Julius’ general direction. She took mental notes of his general attitude on the battlefield as she fiddled with her amulet, the same one she used in the Headquarters to move around unnoticed. The Amulet of Ignorance, the single most expensive magic relic Aika possessed, didn’t make her invisible, but it rather made everyone ignore her presence. If anyone were to look in her general direction, their eyes would glaze over and their gaze would move elsewhere.

Her own gaze landed on Julius’ figure, whipping around too quickly for ordinary eyes to track, but her eyes and brain processed images faster than any other man, except perhaps the only other Time Mage. She focused on observing his technique as she ignored the pangs in her heart. It’s been a week but he was still fresh on her mind.

Aika wondered if he would end up being one of her regrets.

She sighed heavily and put her feelings aside for the moment.

Julius may seem like all sunshine and smiles, but on the battlefield, he was vicious as he made split-second decisions and cut down enemies with efficiency. Clouds of enemies-turned-dust flew around him like an Augury, warning any and all of their fate if they foolishly chose to fight him. She noticed how he used the Chronostasis over a large area and immobilized enemies, but the spell only expanded so far if it touched someone first.

_“He could improve that technique with mana method,”_ Aika thought as she moved her attention over to Evan and Jayce who insisted on fighting. Evan with his Hellfire Magic was raining literal hellfire on the enemy troops while Jayce with his peculiar Shape Magic deftly changed the terrain to his advantage as he tested out his newfound swordsmanship. Aika’s lips quirked up in pride.

He insisted she teach him herself but she was reluctant at first because as much as he was a genius, he was incredibly lazy. But Aika caved into his puppy-dog eyes and taught him the basics but he quickly developed his own style with the foundational knowledge and wielded his strangely-shaped sword quite well. He was no match for Aika due to her decades of experience but most mages these days don’t know how to counter swords well so he was pretty deadly on the battlefield.

Aika sidestepped a falling body as she winced at the mage in pity. It was an enemy mage, but she muttered a little prayer nonetheless to ensure his soul would rest in peace. Perhaps she should start praying after battle again. She used to sing a hymn in her fighting days to ensure the battlefield wouldn’t be tainted by restless souls and she could deign to do it again.

Right as she came to a decision about which prayer to use, an arrow struck her chest, more specifically her precious amulet. She stared in shock at the archer who had even detected her in the sea of mana. The masked archer lowered their bow and looked at Aika almost tauntingly before disappearing behind a hoard of mages charging at each other.

She wanted to go after them, but her first priority was to dodge the mages who turned on her because a mysterious woman just materialized out of thin air. She didn’t even have any identifiers such as a crest or a uniform, so as far as everyone is concerned, she was their enemy. She was glad that her scarf at least covered the bottom half of her face.

Aika cursed when she noticed from the corner of her eye that Evan had begun his ultimate spell. 

Another reason why she was observing today’s battle was to contain the range of Evan’s spell, “Hell on Earth,” but this was not the time. She tucked the broken amulet and arrow into her cloak pocket and shot up into the sky with a sigh. She loved her amulet, but she could afford to mourn later.

Aika threw her hood over her head until it covered her eyes and spread her biggest Mana Zone spell—Queen’s Domain—until it encompassed the whole battlefield. She peeled off her black leather gloves, which suppressed her mana, and unleashed her aura of forbidden magic and smirked at the poor bastard who fell out of the sky when he neared her on his broom. The three horns that sprouted from her forehead lifted the cloak and her vision zoomed in on the growing sphere of blue flames, swelling and stopping at the impossible size of 100 meters wide in the distance.

Everyone on the battlefield froze as they stared in dumbfounded awe at the second Sun in the sky. The silence was deafening, but it only served to make the ringing in Aika’s ears louder as she concentrated on immersing her mana into the sphere and ousting Evan’s out.

Mana existed on a different plane, another realm if you will, but it had the special ability to affect other realms while staying in its own. But the opposite isn’t allowed. Controlling mana that wasn’t your own or in a way that wasn’t permitted by your magic was forbidden by the Gods themselves. In fact, interfering with other realms outside the limitations of your own given magic is forbidden magic.

Aika didn’t believe in limitations. She knew her potential was endless, as characterized by her grimoire. She sacrificed parts of herself to break through the ceiling above her, so Gods be damned. They can’t stop her.

A feral grin spread across her face as the Blue Sun slowly began moving as per her command. She controlled her breathing as she controlled two large spells simultaneously. One spell moved the flames, the other was Queen’s Domain, which combined with a sliver of forbidden magic, froze enemies in place at the sheer amount of fear coursing through their veins. She moved closer to the Diamond troops that were about to be annihilated for better control.

This magic brought out the worst in her, and right now, it relished in the screams that filled the air as the army in front of her lit up in flames. Aika ignored the ugly feeling and concentrated on her breathing again as she prayed. They even sounded like the damned.

* * *

Aika thought the battle had ended at the horrific scene she had created, but the Spade Kingdom joined the fray, forcing Master Raymond, the Wizard King himself, to join as well. After she had made sure Evan was safely off the field to recuperate his mana, she stayed high in the sky, away from most of the spells as she continued to observe Julius while keeping an eye out for the assassin who broke her precious amulet. Her heart nearly stopped when giant _tree roots_ whipped around her to strike at the ground. How in the world was she supposed to expect _roots_ to sprout from the sky?

As she maneuvered around them, she watched as the eye-catching hair of the Captain of the Silver Eagles fluttered in the distance. To her absolute shock, the man stayed completely still right before spikes of hard rock impaled him. Aika shot towards him with a bone-rattling bang and caught him right before he collapsed. A young man, that was the mirror image of Captain Silva, raised his spears of fluid metal at her, ready to strike but she froze him where he stood with a stasis spell of hers.

“Miss Tolliver?” Lord Silva breathed as blood dribbled down his chin. Aika’s weg vanished as worry and empathy filled her. She quickly threw up shields around them as she rewound the time until the spikes disappeared back into the ground.

“Yes, It’s me. Everything’s going to be fine. I can heal you—”

“No!” he exclaimed, then let out a violent cough. She stared at him in horror at the implication of his words and actions. “I don’t want to be healed,” he whispered, confirming her suspicions.

Aika began closing his wounds at a slow pace, slow enough so he wouldn’t notice.

“Why?” she asked mutely.

To her absolute shock, his stoic face crumpled as tears streamed like molten silver down his cheeks.

“I just want to see her again,” he choked out. He just wanted to see Acier again. 

His tears and the sheer heartbreak in words made her heart clench. Aika steeled her resolve. She wasn’t going to let him do it no matter his reasons.

“No life is worth more than your own,” she spat, caught up in her own emotions. His attempt to take his own life brought back memories she would rather forget.

The Captain slackened in her hold, unable to retort. She instantly healed his wounds and watched as the blood receded. Aika picked him up with a sigh as he quickly lost consciousness at the abrupt changes to his body. Healing fatal wounds in this manner wasn’t recommended but it was necessary during battle.

“Is he alright?” Julius’ voice piped up out of nowhere. Her heart leapt to her throat. She turned around and there he was, a few meters away, brows furrowed, and eyes full of worry before they widened in surprise when he realized who he was talking to.

“Aika…” 

The roar of the battle and the clanging in her head deafened as she took in his appearance. Wild hair, stormy eyes, blood-smeared cheeks and singed robes that whipped around in tandem to spells being hurled behind him. 

She felt a sort of burning betrayal as she cursed her foolish heart because only one thought echoed in her mind:

_He was breathtaking._

“Aika!” He exclaimed in alarm.

Julius was suddenly up in her space, forearm pressed against her collarbone as he pushed her aside. He stopped a flaming spear aimed at her back in its tracks as he barked,

“She’s an ally! Stand down!”

The Crimson Lion magic knight lowered his grimoire and looked helplessly at the frozen man next to him.

“Aika, please undo your spell on Vice Captain Nozel,” he commanded softly as she stared at him, wide-eyed.

Her spell fell as per his request and Nozel stumbled into an upright position, an indignant expression strewn across his face as he turned to Aika.

“ _Who are you?_ ” he asked shakely, and cleared his throat with an embarrassed flush.

“She is _an ally,_ ” Julius asserted firmly. “We’ll take the Captain to the medical tent and you continue leading your men, understood?”

“Yes, Sir.” Nozel threw one last look at Aika before he ordered his men to focus on the enemy.

Julius turned to her with a grim face. “I will take us to the tent, if you are ready.” She nodded curtly. He laid an arm on her shoulder and she was whisked away, her vision adjusting to find that she was facing the heavy drapery of the medical tent.

A few healing mages around them jumped in alarm but quickly realized the injured man in Aika’s arms. She was quickly led to an empty bed with privacy curtains and she laid Captain Silva on it carefully as the healers took over and diagnosed him.

She explained his injuries and that she healed him but they wanted to be sure just in case.

Aika stepped back to let them do their thing and looked around to find Julius worryingly examining Silva’s prone form. He looked up and their eyes met.

Strangely enough, there wasn’t a shred of awkwardness in their gaze, but an intimacy of silent understanding, a mutual decision to set their yearning aside in the face of this war.

They both smiled in relief, almost in unison. He cocked his head at her.

_“No hard feelings?”_ He mouthed. Aika nodded back, her heart lighter.

_“No hard feelings.”_

“I have to go,” he announced quietly as he bowed his head. She nodded again, her mood souring once more as she stared at the unconscious man next to her. She watched his back as he moved to leave the tent from the corner of her eye. She clenched her fist as indecision rocked within her, but she finally gave in to her first instinct.

“Be careful,” Aika called out. Julius whipped around in surprise and a grin lit up his face.

“Of course!” he replied eagerly, happy that she was actually speaking to him. “See you around!” And he vanished.

His enthusiasm brought a smile to her face but her mood was quickly interrupted by the sound of crashing waves as the ground shook. She braced herself against the metal railing of the bed’s headboard as she let out a heavy sigh.

That must be her Uncle Raymond with his grandiose water spells that could wipe out armies. She just hoped he wouldn’t use his mana zone spell that could choke people. That spell horrified even _her_ of all people.

She shrugged off her backpack which stayed secure under her cloak and whipped out a chair. She plopped onto it wearily and glared at the silver-haired man next to her as if he was the reason for all her problems.

Aika slipped her gloves back on and rubbed her face with a groan as memories of friends and fellow comrades who have stood still and let themselves be ripped apart flashed in her mind’s eye.

She knew she shouldn’t care. He was not a friend of hers. In fact, he was quite rude to her, but this needless worry and giving into the empathy reminded that after all these years that she wasn’t corrupted, that she was still alive, that she was _still human._

* * *

Aika watched with a proud grin as one last final move from Julius concluded the battle. Cheers erupted across the whole field when the Magic Knights realized their victory.

The Captains, with the exception of Silva, and the Wizard King gathered with the Diamond Kingdom’s Shining Generals to negotiate the terms of surrender. She desperately wanted to eavesdrop on their discussion but General Whomalt was still alive by the end of this battle and Aika promised him that the next time she saw him, he would be dead.

* * *

She made her way back to the medical tent and Silva was already up and about. He sat up on his bed and stared at his blanket-covered lap as emotions raced across his face. She silently strode over to her chair by his bed and he made no indication that he noticed her but Aika knew he did. He was most likely embarrassed by his moment of vulnerability in front of a near-stranger but she didn’t particularly mind it.

She sat down patiently and waited for him to speak but they just sat in silence.

“We won,” Aika informed in a subdued tone.

He grunted. His response irked her but she held her cool.

“I’m not going to tell anyone,” She assured him kindly.

“See that you don’t,” he snapped at her. She held her tongue but couldn’t help but sneer at his tone. This was exactly why she didn’t work with the Magic Knights as closely. Most of them she had observed were quite rude and had a superiority complex. His attitude was only making her miss her amulet even more.

“Arian!” A familiar voice exclaimed as the tent flaps flew open. It was her Uncle. Mages and injured Magic Knights around her suddenly scrambled to attention as the Wizard King homed in on the silver-haired Captain.

“Sir,” the embarrassed Captain gritted out. He pulled out a folded piece of parchment paper as Aika and Raymond nodded at each other in acknowledgement. She would need to tell her uncle at the very least so she can make sure that he talked to someone.

“Are you alright, Arian?” The Praying Mantis Captain boomed as he walked right in after the Wizard King. He pointedly ignored him and the other Captains as they voiced their concerns as well. He tossed his blanket aside and stood up as he handed the paper to her uncle.

“My resignation, Raymond.”

“What?!” His eyes darted between Silva’s cool face and the crumpled paper. “But the war just ended! You have still got loose ends to tie up before the resignation.”

He adjusted his uniform gruffly as he said, “I’ll let the Vice Captain take care of it.” He pushed past the captains, eager to leave. “He is more than capable.” He turned and looked back one last time. “But now, I must say my goodbyes to the men that served me.”

“What's the hurry, Arian?!”

Raymond’s question was followed by silence as Silva left. Everyone watched tensely at the bizarre exchange that raised more questions than anything.

“Well,” the Blue Rose Captain began as she cleared her throat. “We _did_ say that we were going to resign right after the battle.” Her sharp eyes turned to the Wizard King. “I will hand mine in, tonight.”

All Captains except one echoed her sentiments and Raymond’s shoulders fell as his age seemed to catch up to him.

“And I would be the last to resign,” he sighed. He looked up at Julius and everyone’s attention turned to the Wizard King to-be. “I hope you are ready, Julius.”

The young Captain stood up straighter, his eyes eager and attentive for the responsibility that will soon be thrust upon him. 

“Though, I hope you do like paperwork,” Raymond laughed, knowing very well he doesn’t. “Because there’s going to be three times more work.”

All formality melted away as Julius groaned at the thought and the Captains laughed.

Aika released the breath she didn’t she realized she was holding. She just witnessed history firsthand, yet again, but it all felt so new to her. She touched her chest. 

_Oh._

It wasn’t newness, no. She had witnessed far too much to feel as if anything was new. It was actually the _gratitude_ that set her heart racing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- In the future, Julius will get character development, because as lovely as he is as a person, he can't be a centrist as a leader if he wants to create real change.  
> \- In this fic, you'll see him be more proactive with the kingdom's problems and actually use his power outside the Magic Knights.  
> \- I'm not only planning development for his character but also his powers. As I have heavily implied throughout my fic, Julius is not human here and we will see that more in the future as the secrets unravel.  
> \- I'd personally recommend reading the wiki page on the tree of sephiroth and even better, catch up with the manga. But you don't have to, bc by the time i get to the manga spoilers part of my fic, the anime will prolly be there hopefully (fingers crossed).  
> \- did anyone catch the higgs field reference skdjfls;f


	8. Tempestuous I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aika watches Julius become King and then get violated; Julius goes to make his annual visit to the Swallowtail and shenanigans happen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was actually supposed to be a lil over 10k words um 😳😳😳 but I cut it 60/40 so I'll post the next chapter next week for sure bc it's already finished  
> Also! follow me on tumblr @simpingforthisonedeer !! Im very active there and I also draw and post memes about this fic and generally thirst over Julius everyday LMAOOOO  
> Drop and comment or even just a kudos :DD

Aika felt light despite the exhaustion weighing her down as the excited murmur of the crowd surrounded her. It has been two days since the battle and Diamond Kingdom’s surrender, but she would give them a few months before starting a ruckus again. Nevertheless, the peace and relief that it brought to Clover Kingdom had the gathered crowd in high spirits, especially since they knew that Julius was the one who delivered the final blow.

The Grey Deers were especially rowdy near the front, no doubt ecstatic that their former Captain was now Wizard King. The ceremony was already done in private and this occasion was just to introduce the new Wizard King to the public so he may be welcomed. 

She stood atop Clover castle’s outer walls with her associates as she spectated, while also keeping an eye out for any trouble.

Music played loudly to her right and the crowd grew excited as the seven new captains walked on stage.

Fuegoleon Vermillion for the Crimson Lions, Nozel Silva for the Silver Eagles, Jack the Ripper for the Green Mantises, Dorothy Unsworth for the Coral Peacocks, Charlotte Roselei for the Blue Roses, Gueldre Poizot for the Purple Orcas, and Jien Du for the Grey Deers.

It was truly a remarkable sight from a historical point of view because all the captains were replaced and all of them were around the same age, meaning that this trend would continue for a few more generations.

The crowd grew quiet in anticipation after all the Captains settled into their respective places on the stage.

“Ladies and Gentlemen!” A disembodied voice exclaimed. “Put your hands together for our new Wizard King,” A handsome man wearing a voluminous cloak of deep red, shouldering a white, furred cape, adorned with medals and a cross emerged from the depths of Clover Castle. 

“Julius Novachrono!”

The crowd exploded with approval as their cheers, screams and applause filled the air. The sudden noise startled Aika but thankfully, she barely had any mana after the battle so none accidentally escaped. She couldn’t see him clearly from where she was standing but she certainly noticed how he squared his shoulders as he cast his gaze across the sea of people.

Their voices seemed to soar high into the heavens and she couldn’t help but smile at the scene. Jayce was hollering his heart out next to her, screaming how he was Julius’ number one fan. He had been standing close to the former Captain when he eviscerated the enemy two days ago and had been starstruck ever since. 

Ellie clapped politely as Evan let out a whistle or two. Aika would have clapped as well but she was leaning heavily against the edge of the wall, barely even able to stand up straight. She had already suffered the indignity of asking Jayce and Evan to help her walk as if she was some frail, old grandma. She would not also cause a commotion by trying to stand and then fall.

“And finally, please welcome your honorable king,” the announcer stumbled on the last few words. “Augustus Kira Clover the 13th!”

The applause was much more muted and they barely let out a cheer or two. Augustus looked outraged at the gathered crowd and opened his mouth to make his displeasure known but Julius quickly cleared his voice before their “honorable” king could and began his first speech as the Wizard King. Aika listened keenly, secretly reveling in his familiar voice. He spoke at length about hope, faith and love and ended his speech with a hopeful message that had everyone grinning and cheering once again.

Aika leaned back far enough so she could clap this time because she was blown away by the absolute natural way he commanded the stage and the crowd. He was made for this.

Then, the Grey Deers who were standing guard at the front split the sea of people so Julius could go step down to greet and interact with the citizens themselves. The crowd allowed the Magic Knights to create a human barrier for one moment as the new Wizard King planted his feet on level ground, before chaos ensued. People pried the barrier apart and the knights were powerless to use magic in such a cramped space.

Aika tensed for a moment, thinking there was going to be an attack but let out a surprised laugh when she realized the situation. Women threw themselves at Julius, nearly tearing his robes apart and Aika nearly fell backwards with laughter at the sight of him trying to dodge their kisses.

Evan, Jayce and Ellie shared a nervous look as they got ready to catch her if she was actually going to fall. They have never seen their boss so exuberant when she was sober in all the 6 years that they have known her. Aika caught their looks and quickly pursed her lips, an uncontrollable grin still spread across her face.

“Cheer up, you three. I can actually laugh now,” she said teasingly.

“We’ve noticed,” Evan murmured, sending a careful look at Jayce, silently begging him to think before he spoke.

“Yeah, you seem to be in a better mood. Are you and the Wizard King really fu—” Ellie smacked him upside the head before he could finish.

Too late.

Aika’s cheery disposition quickly dissipated.

“No, Jayce,” she said, her voice cold. “As far as everyone is concerned, nothing ever happened at all, understood?”

The crowd standing around on the wall with them started moving for the exits to make their way to the festivities in the plaza. Ellie looped her arm with Aika’s and Evan took her other arm so they could help her walk. She threw a disappointed look at Jayce and sighed. He flushed in embarrassment and rubbed his head apologetically.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Where to, Miss?” Ellie asked as her grimoire fluttered open, throwing a deadpan look at Jayce.

“To my home in Hage, please,” she sighed again as she looked back at Julius among the crowd as he tried to fend them off. Aika turned away before the first pangs of jealousy and longing could hit her. It was just a silly crush. 

A portal opened in front of them at her behest and they quickly stepped through it before the crowd could jostle them around. With Ellie’s spatial magic, she assisted Aika with errands, delivered messages, helped her travel around the world and sometimes even provided support in battle.

Aika sighed contentedly at the transition from the loud crowd to the peaceful noises of nature in the countryside. She felt old at this thought. 

They quickly ushered her into the house and helped her sit in her armchair. She stretched out in her seat and groaned at the sore feeling sufusing through her limbs. Her backpack, which she nearly never took off, poked her uncomfortably in the back but she put up with it anyway.

Aika opened her eyes slightly and her three protégés were looking at her with various levels of concern. She let out an amused huff as she waved them off.

“This is normal. You three should be used to this by now.”

“I mean, you warned us,” Ellie began as she lightly scratched her white, coily hair. “But we have never seen you perform a spell _that_ big so we didn’t know _what_ to expect.”

“I suppose that is true,” Aika hummed before wincing as pain unexpectedly coursed through her body. Jayce urgently strode into the kitchen at this.

“I was initially doubtful if you could handle my spell, Miss,” Evan admitted as he looked down at his hands. “I was completely ready to let the spell loose even at the expense of our allies if it meant we could weaken or even defeat the enemy.”

“Evan.” He looked up at Aika’s unexpectedly strong tone. “I would never put you in a position where you have to make such difficult decisions.” She smiled reassuringly. “I have only asked you to perform the spell because I knew I could handle it. If there is anything that you can depend on in me, it’s that I know my limits. Please have more faith in me.”

He blinked slowly at her heartfelt words, before he smiled boyishly.

“But you’re still pretty weak from it,” he retorted uncharacteristically.

“It was worth it, was it not?” she quipped back, happy that her little speech didn’t sour his mood too much.

Jayce came back from the kitchen with a slightly wet towel and handed it to Aika with a concerned look.

“Here.”

“Jayce…” She shook her head at this gesture with a small smile. It was his way of apologizing for his words earlier. “It is alright. You don’t have to worry too much.”

“Heh,” he carded his fingers through his hair. “If you say so, boss.”

“I have a new assignment for you guys,” Aika quickly began when she noticed Ellie’s mischievous smile. If she started teasing him, an argument was sure to erupt.

They turned to her attentively.

“I have noticed residues of forbidden magic in the abandoned cottage near the church here. It isn’t anything urgent and I’d like for you three to enjoy the festivities in the capital, so take the day off and in a day or two, I’d like for you three to report on your findings, alright?” Aika would have joined them but she was too weak to move in her state so she’ll take a well-deserved break for today. She eyed the gift bag by the entryway. She put together a few gifts for Julius, hoping to give to him today as a sort of welcome but she lacked the energy to move so it would have to be at another date. 

She needed to get _a lot_ of work done. She had to clean out both this house and the Wizard King’s study, where she spent most of the time working, so Julius could use it instead. Master Raymond wasn’t the reading type so he leased it to her for free and she enjoyed that space and she had a feeling Julius would too. Speaking of the headquarters,

“Don’t forget that you also have your day jobs at the headquarters, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am!” They saluted her eagerly.

Aika nodded proudly. She was slowly introducing them to working in environments immersed in forbidden magic so they could take on bigger field assignments in the future. They were still young, only in their early twenties, so she should be careful about how such magic would affect their mental development, seeing as it completely fucked up hers. She would like to think she was fine, but she really wasn’t.

They bid her goodbye with their bright smiles, exuding youth in every way Aika wished she could feel at the moment. Though she stopped aging properly at twenty-five, maybe twenty-six years, weg magic was _exhausting_ and she felt like she had been living longer than she should. It was probably because she hadn’t properly slept in over a decade and a half.

Aika laid the cold towel across her nape with a sigh, though the sensory overload from the pain made everything, including the texture of the towel, seem unpleasant. She shrugged one strap off of her shoulder so she could push the backpack aside and the rune on her forehead began to itch lightly— 

Wait a minute, she sat up straight. 

There was a Swallowtail filled with her magic in the woods behind the church. _Wait._ There were also mini-Swallowtails in her backpack right now. She could recover her magic faster this way. In her excitement, Aika nearly forgot she couldn’t use the Swallowtails inside her loft because they power various magic stones for heat, light, water, ventilation, preservation and some miscellaneous experiments.

Aika leaned back and groaned.

This meant that she must get to the big Swallowtail herself. She _could_ ask Ellie for help but none of them except maybe Julius and herself know about the Swallowtail and they most certainly don’t know about her Time Magic. Most people thought Aika was a weak water mage who was physically strong, used forbidden magic to make up for her shortcomings, and could use a sword well.

She needed to keep her real attribute a secret because states with more sinister plans have hunted her in the past. So much so that they even threatened to destroy their own allies. That part of history was rewritten by Arthur. He stopped a war and changed everyone’s memories and in exchange, he got Holly.

She buried the memories once more as she locked her joints and stood up carefully. No point in dwelling on things she couldn’t change.

There was an old broom in the closet that she could use to get to the Swallowtail. She walked carefully, leaning on the furniture along the way. Aika stifled any groans and put her weight on the wall next to the closet door and opened it. She paused.

There were bloodstains everywhere. 

It must have been from when Arthur was stabbed and bound in here.

Aika sighed as she added another task on her to-do list and picked up the broom next to creaky hinges of the closet door. She gently eased herself onto it and smiled in relief. It would be easier to move this way.

She quickly shot out of the house, relishing in the speed in contrast to her turtle-like pace the whole day and took the straightest path to the Swallowtail.

* * *

Julius extricated himself from the last of the women as Marx made a way for him to escape the crowd. He was hoping to maybe talk to them, maybe leave a more personal impression on them, but today was not his day apparently.

“Sir, are you alright?” Marx asked as they quickly strode into a side entrance to the castle. Julius chuckled lightly as he rubbed his lipstick-smeared cheek.

“Yes, of course, Marx. Just a little...violated.”

Marx smiled as he let out a huff. “I will be very honest with you, sir. I didn’t think that was going to work.”

“Well, perhaps I should organize a town hall so it would be more regulated.”

“I will see if your schedule allows it in the near future, sir.”

He smiled in gratitude as Marx shook his head.

“Alright, well, I got a message that the preparations for the banquet are nearly done and it would begin in an hour—” 

“Marx, would you take care of that?” Julius interjected suddenly.

“Sir?”

“An hour is perfect. I have an important errand I must attend to and it won’t take me long…” He finished quietly, knowing he wouldn’t believe him.

“An errand today?” Marx asked, his voice raising up a notch. “An errand on one of _the_ most important days of your life?”

His annual trip to the Swallowtail so he could deposit his magic just _happened_ to fall on the day he became Wizard King. And a few minutes alone might also do him some good. The weight of what he had just accepted still hasn’t properly set in.

“Um, yes?”

“Julius!”

“It will only take me a few minutes!” He put his hands together pleadingly. “Please?”

Marx let out a heavy sigh as rubbed his temples. He just hoped he wouldn’t be as irresponsible as to miss the banquet entirely.

“Alright, fine. But you better not be looking at magic when I come looking for you!”

Julius grinned in reply.

“Of course! Thank you, Marx!”

In a blink, he quickly phased out and landed in the forest clearing where the ancient magic item was. The sudden change in environment and the heavy weight of the robes grounded him to his current situation.

It was utterly surreal. He was Wizard King.

Julius let out a hysterical laugh as he rested his head against the Swallowtail.

Adrenaline rushed through his veins as his fingers clawed at the cool, metal surface. He could finally help Clover Kingdom for the better. There were so many things he could do, so many things he could change.

Starting off with the Magic Knights. Incentivize and reward good behavior, send more knights to patrols realms where they aren’t accustomed to so they learn to like and protect people below their class, even involve himself in policy as Aika had suggested and think about education. The next generation are the future after all.

His mind was racing with ideas but he took calming breaths before he completely lost his cool. He still had a banquet to attend and nobles to pander to.

He looked intently at the giant, six-pointed star on the Swallowtail as he gathered his thoughts. He should finish his business soon. The sooner he put his mana in, the sooner he could recover it. He slowly started pouring his mana into the ball. He also needed to make sure he had enough left to teleport back.

Julius turned as he felt a presence moving towards him at high speeds. He stopped as he squinted at the figure on a broom, their form silhouetted by the Sun behind them.

His vision grew blurry momentarily as he prepared to transform. It would be a strange and suspicious sight to see the new Wizard King in the Boonies. But before he could do anything, the mysterious person landed in the clearing at an unnatural speed.

Julius’ eyes widened when he realized who it was.

“Aika?”

* * *

When Aika landed near the Swallowtail, she couldn’t believe who it was. She scrambled off of her broom and used it like a staff to lean on.

She could clearly see all of Julius now, no longer a bright, robed figure in the distance.

_And my god was he a sight to behold._

His medals shone in the sun and his red, velvet cloak made him look like the king he was. When her eyes met his, they glinted gold for a moment and she had to remind herself to breathe. 

Though, the effect was slightly dampened by the fact that he was covered in lipstick marks.

“Aika?” he asked disbelievingly. She brought three fingers to her chest in a salute as she tamped down any tremors, whether it was because of her fatigue or emotions.

“Your Highness,” she intoned as she bowed her head. That’s it. He was only the Wizard King to her. Nothing more, nothing less.

“Oh,” he exhaled in amusement. “There’s no need for that. We are _way_ past that. Please,” he said reassuringly. “Call me ‘Julius.’”

Aika’s face gingerly lit up into a grin. The expression felt strange on her face but she couldn’t help it. She was simply glad that they weren’t going to be awkward. She clutched her broom tighter before she could fall as she spoke.

“Well then, congratulations on becoming Wizard King, Julius,” she walked sluggishly towards the Swallowtail, still facing him. “How do you feel?”

His jaw fell slightly, momentarily surprised by her nonchalance. Most people’s attitude changed in the few moments he walked in his Wizard King attire. Even Marx, whom he was most familiar with, grew more serious. But he supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. He seemed to be “just Julius” to her no matter how he was. His chest tightened at the thought. It was a strange sensation.

Julius rubbed the back of his head with a sheepish grin as he relaxed. There was no need for him to be officious with her after all had been said and done. 

“Well, the feeling hasn’t quite set it,” he began. “But, I do suddenly feel the urge to do something, change something,” he confessed, his eyes shining with determination. After their night of shared vulnerability, no matter how sourly it had ended, it felt natural to be himself with her.

He couldn’t help but grin when she looked away with a secretive smile. He knew he still had a chance. He simply needed to go slow this time.

“That’s good. I’m eager to see what kind of revolution you would raise.”

Julius had plans to make connections at the banquet and he had already had a draft of an awards system somewhere in his head. But for now, it was only them in this clearing. He could be himself. He pressed a finger to his lips and leaned forward as if to share a secret. 

“Shh, don’t tell anyone though,” he said playfully. “It’s a secret.”

Aika giggled despite herself.

“I suppose you are going to change the kingdom before the nobles even realize.”

“Exactly! You—” He quickly caught her as she stumbled. “Get it…” he finished quietly, concern strewn across his face.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Julius asked as he looked over her. She was beginning to sweat as she took shallow breaths. “Are you alright?”

Aika exhaled sharply when pain shot up her back.

“I’m fine,” she lied, waving him off as her jaw clenched. It didn’t go unnoticed by him. 

“No, you are not,” he hissed.

“Fine, I’m not,” she snapped back. “Just help me get close to the Swallowtail.” She stiffened when he wrapped an arm around her waist. Julius noticed and silently apologized as he guided her delicately.

“What’s going on?” He asked.

She sighed as she pressed herself against the magic device. There is no harm in telling him and he would need to know just in case he ever needed for her to do a forbidden spell or a ritual.

“I’m still weak from the spell on Saturday.” She brought the mana in the device carefully up to the surface and she felt her strength returning to her, bit-by-bit.

“Spell?” His brows furrowed. “What spell?”

“Remember the giant, blue fireball?” His eyes widened. She quickly clarified before he could think it was _her_ who summoned fire. “Evan was the one who conjured up the fireball, not me. But he can’t control the spell so I had to use weg magic to take control of the spell and guide it towards the enemy while holding them in place.”

Julius looked at her with virtual stars in his eyes.

“So that Mana Zone spell was _yours?_ And _you_ guided that Sun in the sky?”

Aika grew bashful at the admiration in his tone.

“Ah, well, I had a lot of practice for Mana Zone and it wasn’t _that_ big. I’ve seen bigger fireball spells,” she murmured as she bit her lip. 

“Bigger—” He took a double take as the twinkle in his eyes shone brighter. “Where!? I want to see a bigger fireball!”

She laughed at the cute expression on his face.

“I’ll show you sometime,” she promised as she continued to fill up her mana reserves. Aika was silently glad her plan worked. She was no longer sore all over, no doubt the life essence of her mana healing her, and she could stand unsupported.

Julius looked curiously between her hand and the Swallowtail.

“But why do you seem to be in pain? Fatigue is common for mana exhaustion but I have never heard of pain,” he remarked as he laid his own hand next to her, slowly sending out his magic into it. It was what he originally came here for after all.

She sighed heavily. Just thinking about it exhausted her.

“It is one of the side effects of using large amounts of corrupted magic. It is quite harmful to a human body.” Aika explained the long list of effects and how incapacitated it leaves her. “It’s quite painful but it’s incredibly useful so it has its pros and cons.”

She felt flattered by the worry on his face.

“Are there any long-term effects?”

“No, not that—” Well, there was the negative mana affecting everyone around her but it was only because of one ritual years ago. Using more negative magic hadn’t exasperated it thankfully. “Not that I’m aware of, no.”

Julius touched his chin thoughtfully as she continued.

“But please don’t hesitate to ask me to do any spells or rituals for the sake of the kingdom,” she laughed wryly. “I am the only person who could do them after all.”

“Ah, no, no. If it affects you _this_ badly, I would never even think of asking you,” he assured her with a shining smile.

Aika fought off a grin. That...was really kind of him. Her Uncle was quick to jump on the offer and she was glad to be of use to help this kingdom but the concern…Her heart beat quickly at the thought.

_No!_

She mentally shook her head. He should be more concerned about the kingdom not her! What if she could help where no one could?

“Please don’t think of me, think of the kingdom. If I could help, then I would. Whether you accept my help or not is an entirely different matter.”

Due to being particularly sensitive to magic at the moment because of the newly acquired mana, she felt a stab of Julius’ magic hit her.

“And besides, I like using it,” she whispered, the real truth unexpectedly slipping out.

_What. Did he just—_

She quickly masked her shock and met his gaze. He surprisingly didn’t seem disgusted or judgemental at her confession. He just seemed lost in thought as he stared back at her.

“I see,” he simply uttered, his tone giving away nothing.

Usually, any other person’s first instinct would be to get mad at forcing the truth out of them, but Aika, who was quite adept at using backhanded tactics, was _very_ impressed and curious. How on Earth could he use such magic? It seemed like a part of his natural attribute. He truly had a limitless magic potential. He could use Time Magic but that didn’t stop him from using some form of spatial and transformation magic, but also a hidden magic spell perhaps that could induce the truth out of somebody. And here she was, thinking he was a straight-laced, goody two-shoes Wizard King.

_But, no real King is truly virtuous._

She cleared her throat before a giddy smile could slip through. It would have been _exhausting_ to work with someone with a strict moral compass. Though, she shouldn’t be surprised after seeing him on the battlefield. He was _terrifying._

“Well, I suppose you did help us gain a massive advantage with your help on the battlefield the other day. If you hadn’t wiped out the Diamond army, taking on both Spade and Diamond would have been disastrous for our troops.”

Aika hummed in agreement and decided to say nothing. Being complimented by anyone other than her Uncle was strange. No one could recognize her efforts because the Amulet of Ignorance ensured it and she preferred it that way.

A question struck her when she realized where they were.

“Julius?”

He looked at her questioningly.

“Why are you here in the first place? Don’t you have a banquet to attend?”

He grinned widely as he lifted his palm off of the Swallowtail.

“The banquet is in about half an hour and I’ve come to make my annual trip to deposit some magic in the Swallowtail. You know, for emergencies such as yours,” he winked slyly. 

Aika nodded in understanding, rolling her eyes at his jibe. She had also left some of her magic in there for emergencies.

“Well, you should clean up before going to the banquet then,” she said, looking pointedly at the ridiculous lipstick dotting his face. She threw her leg over the broom, ready to leave.

“Wait!” He quickly stopped her, an arm reaching out. “Could I drop you off at your place? You might still be tired.”

“Yes,” she blurted out. She was going to be her own ruin. Why was she doing this to herself?

“Great!” He placed a hand on her shoulder and they immediately found themselves in Aika’s living room.

“May I use the bathroom to wash my face?” Julius asked innocently. Oh, he was doing this on purpose, wasn’t he?

“That lipstick won’t come off with water. Most lipsticks used by women in the Noble Realm are magicked to stick on whatever surface they are applied on and the kind they used was the type of lipstick used to ‘mark people,’” she explained as she walked away. “I’ll go get some wipes for you.” _He_ also seemed determined to stick around and he wasn’t even hiding it. Aika sighed internally. She needed to keep him at an arm's length. Even she cannot resist temptation.

Lost in her thoughts, she walked back to where Julius was, carrying a few wet wipes specifically made to wipe off makeup. Before she could realize what she was doing, she placed a wipe on his cheek as she angled his face to the side with her other hand.

The moment her bare hand touched his chin, Aika began to panic, though none showed on her face. In her mind, she began swearing in all the languages she knew, putting even the most seasoned sailors to shame. She was so used to tending to people that she _completely_ forgot her determination to avoid these kinds of situations at all costs so her crush could go away, but, _nooo._

And once she did something, she always stuck through. There was no backing out now.

Aika began wiping his face without hesitation but that didn’t stop her from berating herself.

_Oh my fucking god. You are a fool, a whole clown, Aika. You should just quit your life, change your name and join your ex-fiance’s circus as a clown. It would fit you very well. Start practicing your honking now, you numbnut._

_Wait, did he react? Wait, I don’t want to know. Oh, shit. I definitely want to know. No, you don’t. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Don’tlookdon’tlookdon’tlook._

She looked. 

Julius was staring right into her very soul from underneath his lashes.

She quickly averted her eyes, a blush rising to her face as her heart seemed determined to break free from her ribcage. She regulated her breaths and willed them to be normal. Thankfully, she had a lot of practice.

But then, he ducked his head so she could have better access and innocuously pressed his cheek into her palm. To top it all off, he closed his eyes and sighed contentedly.

That’s it. Aika was dying. She was having a heart attack. She wanted to scream so badly. She could feel the room spin around her.

_Why? Why did you lean in? Have you no shame? A woman wipes your face and you start making bedroom eyes at her? Oh my god ohmygodohmygod._

How she wished she had her amulet now. If she wore it for a while, everyone except a select few would forget she even existed.

Aika stared at his serene smile, his eyes still closed.

A frown crawled up her face. She started wiping faster, cradling his cheek with her hand while she wiped the few spots on his neck.

She refused to corrupt someone as sweet as him.

“What’s that face for?” Julius piped up, startling her. “Jealous?” he smirked.

_Wow, you are completely shameless. Wait— Jealous?_

“Oh, sure.” Aika rolled her eyes. “I’m jealous of the women who virtually attacked the Wizard King like a bunch of harpys, marking him with magic lipstick, _when I spent a whole night with him._ ”

He turned away, blushing at the insinuation. _Finally_ , he seemed flustered. He did not expect her to retort when she herself was panicking. Aika stepped away as she smirked, satisfied that there was no more lipstick nor that overconfident expression on his face.

“I’ll swing by your office tomorrow to drop some stuff off,” Aika called out as she walked away into the kitchen. Julius shook his head as he gathered himself and followed her. A blush still present on his face, he leaned against the doorframe as he watched Aika move around the kitchen. The very same kitchen where he was turned down.

“What stuff?”

He asked quietly as he buried the memories. Hopefully it wasn’t any kind of paperwork.

“Some stuff to help you as Wizard King and some other things I thought you might like.”

That peaked his interest.

“Oh? What kind of things?”

“Julius,” Aika turned to him, exasperated. “Don’t you have a banquet to get to?”

“You want to get rid of me already?” He asked cheekily, very reminiscent of _that_ day.

“No, but I’m sure you would enjoy a good surprise as much as the next person and I really think you should go.” Her face softened. “Don’t you think it’s strange enough that you stuck around this long?” she asked quietly.

He fiddled with the edge of his sleeve.

“Maybe,” he looked up at her. “But it’s only so I could just be myself before I have to go deal with nobles,” he smiled wryly. “I find politics rather boring, you see. I‘m putting it off as much as possible.”

“Diplomacy is what gets things done in your position,” Aika imparted as she turned back around to arrange the dishes in the cabinet. Her aunt and uncle will move in tonight so she has to get everything in order. 

If Julius finds politics boring, then he may not be as effective. She quickly needed to rid him of that mindset. It would be hard to implement changes if he wasn’t persuasive or have any positive connections with the higher-ups.

“If you find it boring, I suggest you talk about your ideas and plans and observe who are open and who are not. You are quite impassioned about the things you like but I also suggest you keep the topics relevant,” she added lightly as she threw a smile over her shoulder. “Your ideas may also come off naive to the wrong people and could turn away many supporters but you have to stand your ground. Putting a neutral front may seem appealing but it’s only useful for maintaining the status quo,” she asserted as she looked Julius in the eye. “Not for a silent revolution.”

He gaped at her. Master Raymond made it sound as if her unsolicited advice was useless. He actually planned to stay neutral as she predicted but like she said, it wouldn’t get things done. How was she experienced in such things?

“I-I’ll try,” he finally got out. “Were you a ruler in your past life or something?” He asked jokingly. Aika laughed as she turned around and crossed her arms over her chest. She leaned back against the counter with a smirk as she asked,

“Julius, who do you think I am?”

He was slightly thrown off by the question.

“Uh, Aika Tolliver, Time Mage, Spymaster, and advisor to the 27th Wizard King?”

“Also the CEO of an international company,” she added.

Julius took a double take.

“What?!”

She palmed her face.

“So, Master Raymond didn’t tell you?”

“No?”

“God,” she groaned. “I’ll explain more later but I may not hold any political dominion but we are both C-Level executives and some of our tasks are quite similar even if our institutions are different. I _am_ able to give you solid advice on such matters without being an actual ruler.” Aika fiddled with her pocket watch. “You should go.” She said as she guided him through the door and back into the living room. “It’s almost time for the banquet!”

He stumbled as he processed her words. Julius quickly laid a hand on her shoulder to stop her as he looked at her, dazed.

“Wait, so why do you insist on working for the Wizard King?”

Aika tamped down her irritation. There was no reason to get upset. He hasn’t fully transitioned into his duties and information he should be aware of about his staff.

She took a calming breath.

“Because, there are multiple prophecies that state that this continent would spell the end of the world. Everyone around the world know something is going to happen on this continent,” she said coolly. “No one outside are acquainted with the inner workings nor do they like this region. There are contingencies to contain the ‘end of the world’ but no efforts to actually stop it. Me being me, decided to volunteer to be the hero and _you_ ,” she pointed a finger at Julius “are going to help whether you like it or not, understood?”

He blinked as a smile crawled up his face which quickly grew into a grin. That sounded quite exciting! Maybe his tenure as Wizard King may not be _entirely_ boring with a mission like that!

“Y-Yes ma’am!” He let out a chuckle. “I hope you realize I’m only going to pester you with more questions when I see you next time.”

 _Maybe I do want you to come back and pester me,_ A voice in her head piped up intrusively.

“Yes, I’m aware,” she said rolling her eyes. “Now go!”

Julius saluted her with a mischievous grin and vanished.

Aika stood staring at the empty space where he was before pressing her head against the wall next to her with a deep sigh.

 _Why did he have to be at the Swallowtail right when I needed to? Why the fuck did I touch his face? And did he have to be obvious with his advances so much? What did he mean “just be himself?”_ She clenched her fist. The only way she could avoid overthinking was to throw herself into work.

She composed herself and held her head high. There was no time to dwell on such things. She examined her living room as she brought her to-do list to the front of her mind. She had a lot of things to clean, organize and pack.

Aika rolled up her sleeves and tied her hair back.

_Time to get to work._


	9. Tempestuous II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Julius finds Aika in the Wizard King's study; One of the important reasons for Aika's hesitance is discovered; And there's a five-leaf grimoire👀👀

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- 4k words, a relatively short read compared to my other chapters agfdsghfjhl.  
> \- There are also more clues as to what Julius is and I give you one letter. If you figure it out from just that, I will legitimately shit myself.  
> \- I introduce an original character who is Marx's older brother and like all side characters, he is important.

Aika sat down on her most favourite sofa in the Wizard King’s study with a sigh and a cup of tea. She had just finished tearing down all the talisman stuck to the shelves and walls that prevented anyone from detecting the room and noticing the door from the actual office which was also covered by a painting. She had her personal books in a few dozen stacks around her, ready to be shoved into her backpack but she decided to take a small break.

She could faintly hear the muffled discussion on the other side of the wall of Julius apologizing profusely to someone named “Marx.” Aika had recently confirmed it was Marx Francois, Julius’ advisor and attendant. He may not know her, but Aika knew him well enough. His older brother, Karl Francois, is the president of her company and a close friend of hers and he would sometimes tell her about his brother.

Aika sighed contentedly into her cup. She should have tea with him sometime, especially since she doesn't have her amulet to walk around the castle without scrutiny. She did vaguely remember Karl mentioning that Marx liked black tea.

She turned to the door leading to the office curiously when all became quiet. She heard a door swing shut and some sound of shuffling on the other side of the wall and the door in front of her slammed open.

“Aika!” The invader exclaimed. Her heart jumped when she realized owner of the voice.

“Julius,” she greeted cordially. “I suppose Master Raymond told you about the hidden study?”

He rubbed the back of his head.

“Well, not really. I asked him where I could find you. That’s when he told me about the study.”

She hummed in response. So, he _was_ thinking about her.

“Good. Would you like a cup of tea while you tell me how the banquet went?” She asked politely as she patted the sofa next to her.

“No, no, no,” he shook his head as he strode to where she sat. “ _You_ are going to answer _my_ questions.” He plopped down next to her a respectable distance away but still too close. She expected him to sit on the other end of the sofa, _not directly next to her._ She calmed herself as she served him tea.

“First of all, why are you wearing that?” Julius asked, pointing in the general direction of her face. Aika turned to him curiously as she handed him the tea.

“The wha—Oh.” Right, she was wearing a silk blindfold. Sometimes her eyes hurt and become sensitive to light because she had them open for too long. She used Mana Zone often and completely forgot. She couldn’t properly work in this state but it did allow her to organize her thoughts and meditate.

“My eyes hurt,” she answered simply. 

“But you are moving like you can see…” he murmured to himself. “Are you using Mana Zone? I heard that most blind people are quite adept at using it to do their day-to-day tasks.”

Oh, Aika knew that very well. She was blind for a year when she was around 20 and had practically used Mana Zone every waking moment. Due to the ritual she did that made her blind, she had also gained a weak form of clairvoyance, so she could still perceive things around her as if it were normal when she combined it with Mana Zone. The only downsides were that she couldn’t see color.

“Yes,” she answered, wincing internally at the cold tone. While she wanted to keep him at an arm’s length, she didn’t want to seem rude.

“I see, I see,” he nodded to himself, thankfully unfazed. “Tell me more about your company!”

“Well,” she began as she crossed her legs and slipped off her blindfold.

When Aika turned to him, his breath caught. In the dim firelight of the study, her eyes still seemed to glow on their own. His vision seemed to grow sharper and he could count every speck in her eye. He felt his mouth go dry. Oh, there was nothing Julius wanted more than to be held by her again.

She regarded him with a puzzled expression.

“Are you alright?”

“Y-Yes, Aika. I’m fine.” He looked away as he took a rejuvenating sip of tea.

“Okay, so, I started my company as a means to gather intelligence and sell it. We have agents called Eyes & Ears and they basically gather vital information about any and everything and a lot of times it includes spy work. So we also do private investigations and some mercenary work. But that seemed too limiting, so I expanded my horizons into research and education. My R&D department creates magic items and medical practices that would support their local communities and every few years, they collaborate on department-wide projects that are for the benefit of all.” Aika smiled, amused at the way he hung on to her every word.

“We have intensive job training programs of all kinds and we even started a healthcare program a few years ago for our employees but my biggest project right now is to actually make that sort of healthcare public because it's very affordable and our employees have been a big fan of it. But it’s hard because of different countries' laws so I have to go make a lot of appeals with certain Kings and Queens.”

He leaned forward, genuinely interested.

“How do you keep it affordable? Is there a way you could implement that kind of healthcare here in the forsaken realm?”

“Well, we have an exploration department that has multiple guilds across the world in countries where dungeon-diving by private citizens is allowed and taxes are relatively forgiving. This is where we sometimes get most of our revenue. But of course, we also have investors—Arthur is one—and so we try to provide the best services to both our employees and clients.” She touched her chin thoughtfully. “Well, we _could_ institute our kind of hospitals but Clover Kingdom isn’t lacking in healing mages. We mainly use medical practices and technology because the areas we are targeting are places with weak or no magic and have no way to afford or access.”

“So, perhaps we should rearrange the concentration of healing mages in the common and noble realm then.”

“Yeah, well, healing mages are quite rare even in a magic-rich country like Clover Kingdom. It’s also a big problem that everyone here are magic dependent. This kingdom is quite behind on technology, innovation, medical practices and knowledge compared to the rest of the world. And to top it all off, Clover Kingdom maintains no foreign relations outside of the continent so there is no flow of information in. We would have to educate a lot of people in potion-making and using magical items and mundane tools to heal or treat ailments but like I said, Clover Kingdom is behind on education,” Aika ranted as she frowned. She caught the intrigued look on Julius’s face and pressed a gloved hand to her forehead as she apologized.

“Sorry, I meant no offense—”

“No, no, I’m not offended at all,” He said, waving her off. “I’ve simply never considered that point of view.” He gave her a wry smile. “And what you do seems really cool. Though, it sounds like a lot of work.”

She smiled faintly as she set her cup down and leaned her head back against the sofa. She needed to calm down and stop.

“It is, but I have a lot of _time_ on my hands.”

Julius snorted.

“I’m sure you do,” he retorted softly as mirrored her and rested his head right next to hers.

“It’s fulfilling work too,” she said lowly. He hummed in response.

“Master Raymond told me you used to use this study as your office space but now you’re leaving,” he remarked as he looked around.

“Uncle Ray isn’t the studious type but I could tell you are. You would certainly want to use this space.”

“I would,” he admitted, turning his head to face her. “but you don’t have to leave.”

Aika peered at him from the corner of her eye.

“We could _both_ use this space, Aika.”

“Julius…”

“You have really good advice and a different perspective that could be helpful in the future. I’d like to keep you close.”

“You already have an actual advisor. I’m just a consultant.” 

“Marx? He sees my vision, he understands it but he is a conformist, you are not.”

“Julius,” she began as she sat up. “I’m really flattered but I cannot move as freely around the castle anymore. No one here knows I exist.” And if he insisted on spending some time around her everyday, it could be disastrous.

“What do you mean?”

“My Amulet of Ignorance broke during battle and I like to be private. No one in this castle knows me and even if they did, they forgot.”

“You had an Amulet of Ignorance? Those are pretty rare!” Julius exclaimed, his eyes blown wide. She paused when she caught his gaze. Even though violet was a common color for eyes, she realized that his were the most beautiful ones she had ever seen. She realized she wanted a repeat of earlier today when he leaned into her touch and his lashes fanned his cheeks as he sighed with a serene smile.

“I know, and really expensive too.” Aika stood up abruptly and walked to the long desk facing the windows. She caught the purple light of the Wisteria trees sifting through the window panes and focused on clearing her mind. The more she looked at him, listened to him, the more painful it was. Because she wanted to be near him more than anything, but she couldn’t.

She needed to get out.

“It’s the terrifying ordeal of being known.” He laid an arm on her shoulder and she stiffened instinctively. His touch both burned and soothed her. “I completely understand, but don’t you think it’s time to step into the light and get credit for what you do? Like that spell you did on the battlefield?”

“No,” Aika asserted cooly as she shrugged his hand off. “I’m not looking for credit or glory.” 

Once upon a time, she sought glory, but it only left her shoulders heavy with medals and her chest hollow. She was tempted to let the scars stay too as a reminder that glory is empty but she decided to be kinder on herself so she could move on.

If someone gave her credit, great. If not, that’s also fine.

“But don’t you get tired of hiding?”

Yes, but if she had to deal with people more, that would be dangerous for everyone. It was better to be ignored and forgotten than to turn people into hateful creatures.

“What do you mean ‘turn people into hateful creatures?’” Julius asked curiously, he voice steeped in concern.

Aika whipped around. Did she seriously say that out loud? _No._ He was using Truth Magic. _How dare he?_

“You should know better than to use Truth Magic when you are trying to have a genuine conversation, _Julius_.” She stated deliberately, her mana rising around her.

“It’s hard to have a genuine conversation when the other person insists on hiding,” he retorted swiftly as his face turned to ice, masking his surprise at how she had caught on.

She snapped.

“It’s because I don’t want to publicize the fact that I exude so much negative mana that it turns people evil, okay?!” 

She pushed past him.

“Please.” Julius caught her by her forearms and swiveled her around to face him. The words caught in his throat at the sheer vulnerability on her face. “Please, I don’t want to ruin you,” she breathed, her voice cracking. Aika clenched her jaw as she held her tears at bay. “You are so good,” she lifted her gaze to meet his’. “ _So pure._ ”

Her words sent shivers up his spine as he carefully regarded her. _Did she somehow know? No, that can't be, or she would have never insisted on maintaining distance._ Weg magic doesn’t affect him. That was the plain and simple truth. It was why he was so curious about it in the first place. He knew why it doesn’t affect him, but the world didn’t need to know.

Julius watched the way her lower lip trembled, eyes glassy with unshed tears and yearning as plain as day.

He needed to reassure her while keeping his secret.

“You think so little of me that I would be affected by it?” He murmured with a light tone.

“You think so little of my knowledge of _my own condition_ that I wouldn’t know who it affects and who it doesn’t?” Aika snapped weakly. “Strength does not matter. It only doesn’t affect other forbidden magic users and certain species of non-humans.”

 _Non-humans._ The words kept ringing in his head. 

Non-human. Non-human. **_Not-human._ **

_“Your mother died so your half-breed arse could live!” His drunken father screamed as a glass shattered next to his head, shards pricking his scalp and cheek._

_“Don’t ever dare insinuate that your mother never loved you,” his voice came in a dangerous whisper. “You disgusting little N—”_

“Julius?”

He blinked quickly as he sought his bearings. His hands were clenching on her arms so tightly, he was sure Aika was in pain. He could feel sweat rolling down his cheeks. Or was it tears?

“ _Sorry,_ ” he murmured as he blinked again, this time clearing his head.

No, he was human. And he was going to save all the humans in Clover Kingdom and bring them peace.

He rubbed her arms lightly as he healed her and slid his hands up to her shoulders.

“It won’t affect me,” Julius said plainly as his lips quirked up into a hesitant smile.

She looked at him dubiously. She just said that only— _Oh. Is that how it is?_

“Why?” she asked as she sniffled, not expecting the truth.

“It’s simply the nature of my magic,” he answered vaguely. 

That could mean either thing but he could simply be saying that just because. Why does he keep on insisting? She was really not playing hard to get.

“Julius, that isn’t going to convince me. It has real effects. Why are you trying so hard when I am pushing you away?”

His eyes softened as he smiled in amusement.

“Is it so hard to believe that I might like you?”

“Yes?” She asked as if it was obvious. “I was literally rude to you on so many occasions.”

“I’m used to prickly characters.” He rebuffed with a wink.

Her shoulders relaxed slightly as she let out an embarrassing snort. She hung her head to hide the growing smile on her face.

“That doesn’t mean you should tolerate it,” Aika murmured half-heartedly. 

Julius laughed.

“Maybe not,” he murmured as he pulled her into a hug. Her face pressed up against the fur of his cape, tickling her nose as her hands hovered hesitantly around his waist. 

“But I’m very patient.”

After a moment of deliberation, she wrapped her arms around him and nestled into his chest. She will allow herself this one moment. 

Julius made a noise of contentment at the back of his throat as he pressed his cheek to her hair.

“Does this mean you’ll give me a chance?” he asked hopefully.

Aika pulled back and looked up at him with a deadpan look.

“No, there is still a lot you don’t know about me.”

“But, I want to learn—”

She shook her head and looked away.

“You don’t understand. The reason why I’m not convinced is because—” Should she even tell him? It might be a little too much. It was the reason why she was so scared and cautious about the effects her magic has on people.

“Because what?”

Ah, screw it.

“Because after Holly spent a week with me, she clawed Arthur’s face off and tore off my right arm,” she whispered under her breath.

“ _What?_ ” So _that_ was the reason why she was so apprehensive. That...was actually understandable.

“She got irritable after 3 days and her behaviour kept escalating until she was outright hostile...She doesn’t remember of course. We had her memory erased after we restrained her,” Aika explained as stepped away from him, exhaustion sufusing through her. But Julius stopped her and took her gloved hands in his.

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” he spoke softly as he squeezed her hand. What happened to her was _horrible._ “You don’t have to keep away from people, least of all me.” He straightened his shoulders, his eyes determined. “I am telling you with utmost confidence that it won’t affect me.”

One part of her was tempted to refuse anyway but his insistence made her curious. Is it bullheaded confidence or was he truly something else like Arthur pointed out or was his interest in weg magic not so innocent after all?

As she weighed the pros and cons, the more curious she got. Aika really wanted to know what the deal with Julius was, and if worst comes to worst, well, Karl Francois was an expert memory mage. She could erase her existence and it will be like this all never happened.

“Fine.”

Julius lit up at her response.

“I will give you one month time to prove that it truly won’t affect you.”

One month was a reasonable enough time for them to notice any effects. He most likely won’t spend all his time with her like Holly did and he will probably use mana skin to protect himself. And only then will she think about it.

“Thank you!” He exclaimed before he engulfed her into another hug. She could feel the relief coursing through him as he smiled into the crook of her neck. She shivered at the feel of his lips and nose and the way his lashes fluttered against her pulse.

Julius gently cradled her face as he pulled back and Aika melted in his hold despite herself. She could allow herself _to be_ if he truly didn’t turn on her. He brushed her cheek with his thumb, making her look up at him. His eyes were like the darkest part of the sunset where the stars shone and the birds flew. She wanted him to keep looking at her like that. 

He angled his face as he slowly closed his eyes and Aika was mesmerized yet conflicted.

She wouldn’t be able to stop if his lips touched hers.

 _“Julius, stop,”_ she wanted to say but the words were stuck in her throat. She could feel herself giving into the feeling, the falling sensation as it swept through her. His touch burned with something she couldn’t describe but it set her free. Clarity flooded her senses, washing away her fatigue. Perhaps it _was_ time to seek the light again.

 _Aika, no, stop, wait, wait,_ **_wait._ **

“Miss Aika!” Jayce crowed as the double doors from the main hallway to the study flew open. “We found a five-leaf grim—” Ellie, Evan and Jayce took three steps into the room before they halted to a stop at the scene in front of them.

The Wizard King and their boss, pressed up against each other, hair's-breadth away from a kiss.

Jayce slapped a hand over his mouth.

Ellie grabbed onto his and Evan’s collar as they scrambled backwards. She quickly shut the door as she threw an apologetic look at Aika’s burning face who disentangled herself from the king’s arms.

The room echoed with a bang and silence followed. 

Julius burst out laughing as he rubbed the back of his head.

“That was embarrassing!”

“Very,” Aika groaned into her hands. He took her hands once again and pulled her close. “You should go finish your paperwork. I have to talk to them about their mission,” she sighed as Julius placed kisses on her knuckles. She withdrew her hands as she took a step back, her heart twinging at the hurt glimmering in his eyes once again.

“I’d like for us to be friends in the meantime.”

“Do you truly like me?” Julius asked suddenly. Aika was taken aback by that.

“What do you mean? Of course I do.”

“Because, like you said, are you keeping your distance because you are trying to let me down slowly?”

Anger shot up her spine. In a second, she was a hair’s-breadth away once again, face cocked to the side. Julius parted his lips, half-surprised, half-expectant but she only stayed agonizingly close.

“Are you insinuating that I am lying to you about my reasons?” Her voice came lowly.

“No, but—”

“Good, so as long as we can conclusively say that I can’t affect you, I will keep my distance.” He blushed at her heated look. “Because even _I_ cannot resist temptation itself.”

Julius took a stuttered breath as _he_ stepped back this time. _Oh, god._

“Understood.” He cleared his throat as Aika suppressed a smile. “I will, ah,” he motioned vaguely at the door behind him. “Go do my paperwork.”

As if.

He walked away to the door and looked back one last time. She had her arms crossed as she worried her lower lip.

“Goodnight.” She waved with a reassuring smile. He echoed her as the corner of his lip quirked up. 

He could be patient.

The door clicked shut and the world grew quiet in Aika's head for one still moment...Before adrenaline rushed through her veins, buckling her knees and knocking the air out of her.

_Holy shit._

That interaction had taken more out of her than anything. It’s been _years_ since she had any complex, romantic interactions and god, the yearning was exhausting.

Aika stumbled over to the cold tea on the low table in front of the sofas and picked up the cup as she took deep, slow breaths. She waved her hand over it and rewound time to make it warmer. She took a big sip as her heart finally began to calm down. She silently padded over to the main doors and swiftly pired one open. 

Surprisingly enough, the three were not listening in. They were instead gathered in a small circle, talking in low voices.

“This bird had some nerve yanking my hair,” Ellie growled.

“What’s going on?”

Evan and Jayce moved out of the way when they heard Aika, revealing a little anti-bird with an impossibly bored expression resting on Ellie’s cupped hand. She raised a brow at that. The three of them are fairly powerful mages, with Ellie and Jayce being stage 2 while Evan was an arcane stage. So, why was an anti-bird so comfortable in their presence?

“This anti-bird kept following us from Hage, miss,” Jayce groused as he poked it on its head. She walked closer so she could inspect it. She reached out a hand but it evaded her as it flew up and perched on Evan’s head.

“You are weakened but you still have more mana than us?” Ellie asked incredulously.

Aika shook her head and waved them in. She settled back down on the couch as she crossed her legs imperiously. She watched in mild amusement while they carefully inspected the room like the Wizard King was going to pop out from somewhere. She stared down Jayce as he held back a blush, no doubt about the scene earlier, but he shook his head, reassuring her that he wouldn’t say anything. But, she knew that they would thoroughly interrogate her after they were done.

They soon lined up in front of her, backs straight and eyes sharp as they pressed a hand over their hearts and bowed low in a salute as protocol required before they could report to her. While she understood the need for ceremony, they were personally close to her so she had asked them to skip it in the past, but they insisted anyway, saying that it made them feel more like grown-ups.

Ellie was the first to speak up.

“We spent some time inspecting the abandoned cottage like you asked us to.”

“And we have some good news, strange news, and stranger news,” Jayce continued after her.

Aika threw back the last sip of tea and stared at the tea leaves at the bottom of the cup as she half-heartedly attempted to divine from them.

“What is the good news?”

“The good news is that Master Raymond and Lady Lydia had successfully moved into your home without any issues, though they did talk of maybe doing renovations.”

“Good.” She set her cup down with a ‘clink.’ “The strange news?” She breathed out as she reclined, resting her temple against the palm of her hand while she leaned on her elbow.

“Master Raymond wanted us to give you a letter from one Arian Silva, which is supposedly an invitation to tea tomorrow if your schedule allows it.”

Jayce handed her a wax-sealed letter. She noted that the seal was red, meaning that it was a formal letter, which was just the usual.

Aika flicked the seal open and skimmed the letter. It was indeed an invitation to tea and he simply wanted to speak to her about that day on the battlefield. 

_Yes, quite simple._ She thought as a headache began to grow.

“And the stranger news?” She asked, her eyes still wearily glued to the paper in her hand. She looked up curiously when no one said anything.

The anti-bird on Evan’s head seemed to glare daggers at her as he sifted through his cloak. He whipped out a small potato sack and emptied out its contents onto the table between them.

It was a musty, decrepit-looking grimoire, dark in color with no discernable symbol on the cover. She picked it up and immediately felt something off about it.

“We investigated the abandoned cottage and we believe it may be at most 5 years since anyone had occupied it and you were right, there were traces of _a lot_ of forbidden magic,” Evan confirmed.

Aika wiped the cover where she knew a symbol would be and her jaw nearly dropped at the abnormal clover formation.

“We believe we found a five-leafed grimoire.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Yes, I think I'm funny naming Marx's older brother "Karl" LMAOOOO His name was actually supposed to be "Anwir" so make what you will of it👀  
> \- That lil tidbit of Aika being blind for a year and being sensitive to light is important to remember👀  
> \- That is sweat rolling down his cheeks not tears LMAOOO im not going to make him cry(yet)  
> \- Homegirl manifested a whole intervention LMAOOOOO  
> \- Nero doesn't avoid Aika bc she has any mana, no, she's avoiding Aika bc she can feel the forbidden magic coming off of her and knows that Aika will find out Nero is human the moment she touches her.

**Author's Note:**

> Leave comments and Kudos. They really fuel the writer's soul ;)))  
> I have no doubt that you guys have many questions. So go ahead and ask away on my tumblr, simpingforthisonedeer.  
> Don't ask anything about plot but do ask about Aika or the info in the chapters I've posted so far. Oh! And if you see any mistakes, I'm begging you, please tell me.


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